LAMEZIA TERME The Calabrians arrived in Messina and made agreements directly with the people of Messina, limiting telephone contacts as much as possible to avoid exposing themselves to the risk of wiretaps. Across the Strait, the Calabrians would have maintained direct contact with the leading exponents of the association, “also reaching the home of Castorino and Abate” on several occasions to deliver the narcotic ordered and agree on future supplies or to collect the money as compensation for the deliveries made. This was written in black and white by the investigating judge of the Court of Messina in the latest maxinvestigation which shed light on the crimes of association aimed at the possession, trafficking, cultivation and sale of narcotics, as well as for self-laundering, fraudulent transfer of values, illegal porting and alteration of weapons, extortion and other crimes, with the arrest of 112 people between Sicily and Calabria.
Among the figures identified by the Messina DDA, there is Gioacchino Cananzi, a 49-year-old from Rosarno who ended up in prison and who, as the investigating judge reports in the order, would have ensured the group “massive and systematic supplies of cocaine” while the amounts that each time would have received as compensation “are equally significant”. As proof of the impressive volume of business managed by the group and Cananzi, iThe investigating judge also highlights the episode linked to the seizure of 225 thousand euros carried out against a courier sent to Messina precisely from Cananzi who, as emerged from the investigative activity, communicated with the other suspects via a confidential telephone. Another supplier of the group headed by Abate and Castorino, still coming from Calabria, would be Antonio Strangio. According to the prosecution, in fact, he would have «supplied the Messina group with large quantities of narcotic substances, making use of the precious collaboration of Bruno Giorgi and, after his arrest, of other couriers», reports the investigating judge in the order.
Between January and July 2022, investigators managed to document numerous drug supplies coming from this channel and, on several occasions, thepg also managed to intervene promptly, before delivery, arresting the couriers and seizing the narcotic substance.
The Strangio “method”.
As reconstructed during the investigation phase, and reported by the investigating judge in the orderStrangio would have used various stratagems to try to evade any possible police checks in every way. And this would have happened both to make the deliveries and to collect the money owed as the price of the narcotic. In essence, on a car the drugs were hidden inside the spare wheel while Strangio himself almost always “accompanied, on board another vehicle that acted as a trailblazer, his own courier, to carry out a real control of the territory before the cargo reached its destination” headed precisely for Messina. The group then used an “encrypted” telephone, another very common method also in previous investigations which concerned the relations between Calabrians and Sicilians. But, in the meantime, after the first arrests, Stranio’s prudence increased. According to the investigators and as reported by the investigating judge in the order, the cars began to travel on different ships while the Calabrian also made use of female couriersof cars specially modified to hide the narcotic substance, “and began to go to Messina without indicating a precise day or time, fearing that he was under surveillance or that the people of Messina were”.
Furthermore, for the investigators, Bruno Giorgi would also be “inside the association”. In fact, on more than one occasion, he was responsible, as a courier, “for delivering the narcotics intended for the people of Messina on behalf of Strangio”. Not a simple “courier”: Giorgi, in fact, would be “Strangio’s trusted man”, an intermediary of the same association. On more than one occasion the investigators would have recorded his presence at Abate’s house during the meetings that took place in January 2022 between the people of Messina and Strangio «on the occasion of which negotiations were started in view of the start of the relationship of supply of drugs”. ([email protected])
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