They used medium-small tonnage boats plying the Balkan route, disguising the maritime activity with the much more profitable one linked to the transport and sale of a huge quantity of contraband cigarettes which arrived in the port of Bisceglie, carefully hidden under the crates of fish. A phenomenon that is decreasing and in many respects obsolete in the last twenty years, but not completely eradicated, which at dawn today led to the arrest of 13 people: 4 of them (the 35-year-old Diego Lorusso resident in Desio, the Biscegliesi Pietro Vallisa, Francesco Sgroni and Adamo Zingarelli) ended up in prison, the remaining 9 under house arrest. Also present in the organization were two women, fully involved in the transport of the goods.
The operation was conducted by approximately 70 soldiers from the Carabinieri Provincial Command of the Bat, assisted by the specialized departments of the Puglia Helicopter Hunters Squadron, the 6th Helicopter Unit of Bari and the Dog Unit of Modugno and in collaboration with the Desio Company.
The details were provided in the morning during a press conference at the Provincial Command of the Force. Conducted by the soldiers of the Bisceglie Tenenza, the investigations began in June 2022 and concluded in the first months of the current year. “Recover” was the name of the operation: in fact, a quantity of over a ton of foreign manufactured tobacco had been seized from the criminal group, goods which the criminals themselves had tried a month and a half later to recover with great unscrupulousness through an attempt of armed robbery and with distorted faces in the place where the contraband cigarettes had been deposited by the police. At retail, the criminal activity could have brought in three million euros. The arrested people, who, as the Provincial Commander of the Carabinieri Massimiliano Galasso himself has repeatedly pointed out, do not belong to the Bisceglie navy, used cryptic language, giving specific names of fish to the different brands of cigarettes.
In addition to the smuggling activity, the arrested individuals are seriously suspected of selling, distributing and marketing narcotic substances, the latter arriving by land from Turin.
