BARI – They forced the owners of fishing boats and fishing boats moored in the port of Santo Spirito to pay from 10 to 100 euros per month as “protection”. And for years, in a climate of subjugation and silence, many of the more than fifty Santo Spirito shipowners would have paid, without ever reporting.
This was discovered by the police who arrested four people, a 52-year-old multiple criminal affiliated to the Diomede Mercante mafia clan, his wife and two alleged accomplices, in charge of collecting the money. The three men ended up in prison, the woman under house arrest.
They are answering, for various reasons, for continued extortion aggravated in competition, fire aggravated with the aggravating circumstance of the mafia method and illegal occupation of state property.
The investigation, coordinated by the DDA and started in April 2022 after an anonymous complaint, made use of the analysis of video surveillance systems, as well as numerous observation services and the use of telephone interceptions, which made it possible to ascertain that the 52-year-old carried out an illegal security service in the port, inducing boaters to pay sums of money by way of “protection” of the moored vessel, under penalty of unjust damage: theft, damage to boats, fires. The requests, on a monthly basis, were defined by a price list based on the size of the vessel, from a minimum of 10 euros for “gozzetti” to 100 euros for fishing boats, and based on the season (more expensive in winter), the all in a climate of silence and subjugation of the victims, aware, in case of refusal, of the risk of theft of the instruments installed on board or damage to the vessels themselves, as reconstructed in the investigative activity.
The 52-year-old had also illegally occupied the state-owned area in front of the port, delimiting it with a chain, so as to prevent public use in order to use it as a parking lot for private cars, often receiving prior telephone requests from some users. To clear the area for illegal parking, he also set fire to a fishing boat. The same suspect then attempted to become a caretaker at a nautical club in the port, threatening death and beating the legitimate caretaker with a stick in order to induce him to give up his security service, but without success. In one case a shipowner would have been forced to pay 500 euros to avoid the sinking of his fishing vessel involved in an accident at sea with another vessel attributable to the suspects. Among the confirmed alleged victims there is also a police assistant, owner of a boat, who however refused to pay and drew up a service report to report the matter.
In the searches carried out today, at the same time as the arrests were made, the carabinieri found and seized some handwritten sheets from the 52-year-old’s home where names and amounts were noted, probably the ledger of the “protection money” from the shipowners of the port of Santo Spirito. The wife of the multiple criminal would have been an accomplice to this accounting.
The deputy prosecutor, coordinator of the Bari DDA, Francesco Giannella, highlighted the “emblematic condition in which some territories mistakenly considered peaceful live where unfortunately illegality reigns, is creeping and above all is very tolerated”. In the last four years in Santo Spirito an escalation of violence has been documented due to the mafia presence in the neighborhood, from beatings of family members of justice collaborators to extortion of commercial activities.
Tags: euros month protect boats moored Santo Spirito arrests
