ROCCA DI NETO (KR) – The American Cosa Nostra had asked men of the Valle del Neto gang to extort Manhattan entrepreneurs. The criminal axis between New York and the Crotone area passed through the “services” rendered by the ‘Ndrangheta; services that had been solicited by Teodoro Matozzo, known as “Terry”, originally from Satriano, in the Catanzaro area, considered a leading exponent of American organized crime and closely connected, apparently, to the well-known Gambino and Colombo families.
At least this was the report sent to the Catanzaro DDA, through the International Police Cooperation Service, as part of the “I can” project, in March 2020, by the New York FBI, which had launched an investigation into a criminal association headed by Matozzo. The ‘Ndrangheta group, active in the Long Island area, would be made up of the Corigliano di Rocca di Neto and Iona di Belvedere Spinello families.
There is this and more in the documents of the investigation coordinated by the prosecutor Antimafia Domenico Guarascio, and conducted by the Flying Squad of the Crotone Police Headquarters and by the Central Operational Service of the State Police, which led, last Monday, to the blitz with which I The new structures of the Rocca di Neto clan have been disarticulated but which can be linked to the global attack on the ‘Ndrangheta of which Italy is the main inspiration. A report on the clan’s projections in the USA highlights the contribution provided to the New York investigators by a source who had spilled something about the suspicious activities that Ernesto Toscano, a 56-year-old from Rocca di Neto, would have carried out on behalf of Matozzo between America and the ‘Italy.
Toscano, in particular, would have become part of the Calabrian organized crime station based in New York thanks to the support of his father-in-law Giovanni Fabiano, arrested in the United States for illegal possession of weapons and investigated for alleged drug trafficking. More specifically, Toscano would have directed his fellow villager Ennio Lerose to go to Rocca di Neto to make direct contact with his uncles, Pietro Corigliano and Martino Corigliano, the former believed to be at the top of the Rocca di Neto gang, to «convince them to intervene in carrying out a serious extortion against a Manhattan businessman». The extortion having gone through, Matozzo, satisfied with the “work” carried out by the “good guys” from Rocchita, allegedly instructed the Calabrian criminal group to carry out other extortions on entrepreneurs residing in the State of New York.
SUSPICIOUS TRANSACTIONS
The economic-financial checks conducted by the American investigators at the request of the SCO would then have made it possible to identify suspicious transactions carried out by Toscano at the check exchange agency “Sabrina’s Check Cashing Inc.”, located in Hempsteadal, at 571 Uniondale Avenue in Long Island. Between December 2016 and October 2017, at that same agency, the man had changed 33 checks into cash for an amount of over 780 thousand dollars (equal to approximately 670 thousand euros) issued by the construction company “Roccaway Construction Corp.” by Massimiliano Guarascio in favor of the company “M&E Construction” referable to Toscano. The non-banking operations alone cost over 17,000 dollars (about 15,000 euros) in taxes and services. Guarascio is domiciled in Glen Clove, destination of the exodus of thousands of emigrants from Belvedere Spinello, a few meters from Antonio Iona’s home. Similarly, similar suspicious transactions were traced carried out during 2019 at the same financial office, by Lerose and Iona: the first appeared to have changed checks for almost two million dollars, issued in favor of the painting company of the same name “Professional Painting by Ennio”; the other, bonds for almost 800 thousand dollars issued in favor of his company “IGC Wall Systems Inc.”. The “cheque exchange” agencies, although they operate in legal conditions, are often used by criminal groups, underlines the Sco, to launder the proceeds of their illegal activities, even in the face of fleeting and generic money tracing procedures, free from control systems of the American Central Bank. FBI analysts investigated the social relations of the suspects, tracking the traffic of US telephone users, and a picture emerged which would confirm the hypotheses put forward by the Italian investigators regarding the existence of a unitary group of ‘Ndrangheta operating in the area of Long Island, directly attributable to the Corigliano di Rocca di Neto and Iona di Belvedere Spinello clans.
IN 3 MONTHS EARNINGS OF 15 THOUSAND EUROS
The wiretaps allegedly revealed an illegal practice that Matozzo and his US acolytes used to follow with the co-option of Calabrians to be employed in unspecified activities, presumably including undeclared work, in various areas of the state of New York. It is no coincidence that Toscano would speak of huge earnings, estimated at over 5 thousand dollars a month, accrued after quarterly stays following the ESTA authorization (Electronic System for Travel Authorization). “Now that they’re starting to run out a bit… [con il denaro, ndr] I take it again… I go to America when I have to buy something… last time I had to buy a car… without financing and nothing… in three months you make fifteen thousand euros…I went down [ovvero, sono tornato in Calabria] and I bought the car.’
Lavish revenues thanks to which the suspects could go on holiday to the Caribbean. «We were left that we went to America … and we did New York … then we did Cuba, Santo Domingo and we came back». The American dream is much better than the prospect of staying in Calabria, where you work in the countryside for little money. «I quit this job [in Italia] I’m going to America again!”, “Otherwise you can go to work on the land for a thousand euros a month?”. In another interception, Toscano complains that he has not been able to regain the authorization to travel without a visa, issued by the United States government.
THE HOOKUPS OF “TERRY”
Toscano, thanks to Terry’s “connections”, confided to his interlocutors that he could open a VAT number in America. Matozzo, moreover, would have confided to him: “Erne, don’t worry that if I have to help you, I can help you, rightly, what I give you, you have to give it back to me”. The strategy was to exploit his wife’s name, which appeared for the first time in the registers of the American chambers of commerce and to identify people willing to travel to New York for short periods of labor thanks to the Esta tourist authorisation. Terry’s influence was great: after a simple phone call from Matozzo in Italy, Toscano had received many job offers. «I received… you know how many calls… From Reggio Calabria, from Sicily, from Monza… Where they make the marble… From Massa Carrara… with one… call from Terry… a hundred called me… I made just one call to Matozzo and you see that has moved the world has moved! You understood?”.
REQUEST FOR REGISTRATION
There was enough for the DDA led by Gratteri to ask the US Department of Justice for judicial assistance, after the reporting of extortion episodes carried out by the ‘Ndrangheta in New York. There was to deepen the economic movements of characters linked to the Corigliano and Iona clans on the possible laundering in America of the proceeds unduly obtained through blackmail actions, clandestine bets, gambling, reuse of precious and valuable objects.
