Drugs and cigarettes reached the port of Bisceglie, in the north of Bari, thanks to the complicity of some local fishermen who helped import them with their boats. I am 13 people arrested (four in prison and nine under house arrest), including two women, accused to varying degrees of transfer, offer for sale, distribution and marketing of narcotic substances and of importing, transporting and selling contraband foreign manufactured tobacco. The operation, called Recover and started in June two years ago, has allowed us to ascertain a drug and tobacco trafficking managed by the suspects. Those arrested are mostly local people, except for one who is a resident of Desio, in Lombardy. A significant quantity of tobacco and drugs was seized during the investigations. The arrests were carried out by the Carabinieri of the provincial command of Barletta-Andria-Trani assisted by the specialized units of the helicopter squadron Carabinieri hunters Puglia, the sixth helicopter unit of the Carabinieri of Bari and the dog unit of Modugno and in collaboration with the Carabinieri company of Desio.
An “unscrupulous, unscrupulous” group whose sole objective was to make money and for this reason it made its criminal caliber and logistics available to traffic in contraband cigarettes and drugs. People ready to do anything, even pretending to be fishermen, just to earn as much as possible.” Thus, Colonel Massimiliano Galasso, provincial commander of the Carabinieri of Barletta-Andria-Trani commented on the operation coordinated by the Trani Prosecutor’s Office which today led to the arrest of 13 people between Bisceglie and Lombardy, the majority with criminal records. Four ended up in prison (Diego Lorusso, 35 year old resident in the province of Monza and Brianza, Pietro Vallisa 44 years old from Bisceglie, Francesco Sgroni, 58 year old from Bisceglie and Adamo Zingarelli from Bisceglie), nine under house arrest. Among them there are also two women, Antonietta Catanzaro, 45 years old from Bisceglie and Sanita Karahasanovic, 32 years old of Bosnian origins, “useful in evading controls”, specified Lieutenant Alessandro Rundo of the Bisceglie Carabinieri lieutenant. The suspects “used small boats on which they loaded fish products to hide cigarettes and drugs and used to indicate the type of illicit goods transported in a cryptic way”, continued the lieutenant. And so’grouper’ or ‘bream’ they were a way to indicate tobacco that “mostly arrived from the Balkan route. The narcotics, on the other hand, arrived from Turin to be sold in Bisceglie and nearby towns”, Galasso specified.
The turnover was around several thousand euros. “From the daily square they pulled up between the 5 and 10 thousand euros“, the colonel stressed, explaining that the Carabinieri seized more than a ton of contraband cigarettes worth over three million euros. “The suspects tried to recover this merchandise with an attempted armed robbery carried out a month and a half after the seizure, and this highlights the audacity that characterized them,” Rundo declared, clarifying that the name of the operation Recover took its name from the failed robbery. During the course of the investigative checks, the Carabinieri made some arrests, “but those who ended up in prison were able to give instructions from their cell. A way of doing things that shows how criminal trafficking was primary compared to the fish trafficking that characterizes the economy of Bisceglie,” Galasso declared, reiterating that “the city’s Navy is not involved in the investigation.” “With today’s activity, we are giving a sense of social reassurance to a town like Bisceglie, which is thriving, hard-working, where there is a great demand for security from the citizens. I think that in this way we can provide social reassurance as well as interrupt illicit trafficking that is worth millions and that in any case harms the security of the territory”, concluded Galasso.
