Messina – The Barcelona mafia manages to get everything the clan’s prisoners want into prison: from drugs to cell phones to communicate with the outside world. Not only in the “Madia” district structure of Barcellona but also in the other Sicilian structures. This is confirmed by the Carabinieri’s latest anti-drug operation which resulted in 112 arrestslast Tuesday. In fact, among them there is also a prison officer Francesco La Malfa (52 years old) and the ASP nurse Luigi Enrico They pay (46), both residing in Barcelona, where they were serving in prison during the period of the investigation, both now behind bars but as prisoners.
In Sicily, sieve prisons
“It is an increasingly frequent phenomenon not only in the structures of Messina and which we have also found ourselves faced with on other occasions, not only in this investigation”explains the deputy prosecutor of the Messina Anti-Mafia District Directorate Vito By Giorgiowho coordinated the checks entrusted to the Francesco deputies MassaraVeronica DeToni and Fabrizio Monk.
The drug business in prison
In short, in Sicily drugs and cell phones pass between the bars of cells more and more easily, from the outside to the inside. In Barcelona even, the investigation reveals, a prisoner had set up a real autonomous organization aimed at drug trafficking from outside to inside. “Here it is better than outside… min… there is good money”, confides Giuseppe Maiorana to a family member during an interview in 2022.
The drug in the lasagna
The Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit and the Penitentiary Police dismantled everything. “The measures were always aimed at preventing the entry of what was highlighted in the investigations, such as mobile phones and narcotics. The investigations made it possible to stop the activity because sometimes some inmates try to evade the controls”, explained the regional director of the Penitentiary Gaetano Star, who told how drugs entered prison in the most varied ways: in the lasagne brought to prisoners, in cigarette packets, in the mouth or anus. The inmates were intercepted explaining to their families how to bring drugs into prison during interviews, while the repentants revealed who managed the trafficking between inside and outside and how it worked, then naming the officer and nurse involved. Both were then intercepted and it was discovered that they had relationships with the partner of a prisoner who supplied the man with cards and mobile phones and that they actively participated in the supplies.
The role of the prison officer and the Asp nurse
Gabriel Abbas, in prison in Barcelona between 2022 and 2023, reveals: “I was detained together with Maurizio Iannello, word immediately spread that he was in charge in the section.” The relatives of the inmates paid Filippo Iannello for the narcotics outside, explains Abbas, the agent took it inside and here the drug dealing was managed by the Iannellos and Filippo Biscari. Every week 20, 30 grams of cocaine entered, sold for 150 euros per gram, and between 2 and 3 ounces of marijuana or hashish, sold for around 30 euros per gram. The role of the prison officer is also confirmed to investigators by two other inmates from whom investigators seized some cell phones in 2021. In 2021 two inmates were arrested because they were found with cell phones and they also confirmed the role of agent and nurse.
