I Carabinieri of the NAS of Trento They executed 7 precautionary custody orders, six of which in prison and one under house arrest, issued by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Bolzano.
The crimes contested are trafficking in anabolics (art. 586 bis of the criminal code), including some also included among those considered narcotics (and 7371 presidential decree 309/90), in competition (art.110 c.p.), large-scale trafficking involving shipments carried out in a widespread manner and throughout Italy.
In the execution, the military of the NAS of Trento have received the necessary valuable collaboration from NAS of Rome he was born in NAS of Milanas well as by ROS personnel from Trento, Padua, Rome and Milan.
The investigation is inspired by a report following the discovery of tumors in some young athletes which in scientific literature are specifically caused by the use of anabolic substances.
I Carabinieri of the NAS of Trento they identified the main suspect, a bodybuilder and personal trainer at the gym frequented by both young people and, together with the Carabinieri of the Bressanone Company, knowledgeable of the particular South Tyrolean dialect spoken by him, they began an in-depth investigation.
The investigations required in-depth, systematic and focused activity as the subject under investigation was extremely cautious and attentive. However, the investigative effort made it possible to identify his modus operandi by ascertaining that he took orders from customers and then ordered the anabolics for them, sending them to them as postal orders at a large shipping chain.
Purposely, the name of the recipient was false and so was the name of the sender so as not to allow any recognition or identification even in the event of control.
The Bolzano seller passed the tracking on to the customer who followed the arriving package and showed up to collect it with the receipt on his phone.
The investigations were made particularly difficult not only by the suspect’s suspiciousness but also by his activity in the field of permitted supplements.
Despite this, the military, evaluating the origin, arrival times and weight of the same, intercepted some packages in which they found various anabolic substances.
In one case, following the customer, they had him stopped by patrol and found the substances in the newly loaded trunk.
In one case, it was found that the Bolzano individual also used a collaborator to collect cash from various customers. (The latter was reported at large in competition).
It was therefore ascertained that the main source of supply for the Trentino Alto Adige region came from Rome.
To identify who was sending from Rome, the NAS soldiers went to Rome, to a shipping office and there, assisted by the Roman NAS, they carried out a series of observation and shadowing services at the end of which they identified a couple, a man and a woman, who went to the shipping office every day and sent packages throughout Italy (including Bolzano) under false names.
To do this they took advantage of the complicity of the owner of the shipping shop who knew well what he was shipping and the activity of the two, from which he also benefited financially.
The investigations continued but, since some packages, headed to Bolzano, had not reached their destination, as they were seized by the NAS, it was discovered that the shipments to Bolzano began to come from Milan, whose epicenter became the new source of supply for the aforementioned subject from Bolzano. At the same time, the shipments from Rome moved to another channel with the involvement of another subject, later identified and reported as a participant.
A new figure of importance then entered the scene, a sort of coordinator of the activity who, after some “lost” packages between Rome and Bolzano, decided to take care of them personally.
The military, after in-depth studies on the flow of packages, set up a series of observation services with which they managed to identify the aforementioned main coordinator and his two collaborators who sent packages every day throughout Italy under a false name.
Having obtained concrete and consistent evidence of guilt, the AG issued six orders of precautionary custody in prison and one under house arrest.
During the execution of the arrest warrants, 20 searches were also carried out at the same time at the homes of the arrested, the Bolzano gyms of the arrested South Tyrolean, homes of friends and girlfriends of the arrested that the Carabinieri had reason to believe were premises used to hide the proceeds of the criminal activity, anabolics and credit cards registered to others on which to receive payments. The packages sent from each “shipping center” were around 250 per month and the Carabinieri estimated a monthly income of between 55,000 and 65,000 euros.
Please remember that the presumption of innocence remains, meaning that a person cannot be considered guilty of a crime until a final conviction has been issued. The accused is presumed innocent until the final sentence of conviction. During all levels of judgement, therefore, he must be considered innocent of the crime of which he is accused. Even the partially convicted must be considered innocent. As mentioned above, in fact, the presumption of innocence requires that even the person recognized as not guilty by a sentence that can still be appealed is considered not guilty. And so, the person convicted in the first instance who has appealed or who still has time to do so must be considered innocent.
