Mafia intimidation with gunshots, armed ambushes to take revenge for non-payment or even a banal slight. And then the “do justice to yourself”hiring criminal associates without waiting for the decisions of the Courts.
The ways of illegality
The “short ways” of illegality followed with violence, the “dangerous” entanglements between civil society and the Veronese branches of the Calabrian gangs, the mutual favors between the double-breasted entrepreneurs with one foot in politics and the armed and incendiary laborers of organized crime of Crotone origins which have now become “at home” in the Veronese area. And then a trade unionist, the late Gianmassimo Stizzoli from Verona, who was allegedly threatened and beaten, exasperating and frightening him to the point of inducing him to abandon his representative activity to protect workers, because “he annoyed the management of a company (Vierrecoop)” whose manager Alfredo Frinzi is now among the 41 defendants in the maxi investigation «Isola Scaligera 2» of the Anti-Mafia of Venice. Ambushes with Kalashnikovs, blackmail with mafia methods, and then the fire: many, too many “suspicious” fires, especially to the detriment of cars and companies, maliciously set to resolve “business issues” without waiting for the sentences of the Courts, or to defraud insurance companies on compensation for fire damage. With this “Isola Scaligera 2” we go up a level, bringing to light more serious crimes, disturbing mixes between the underworld and entrepreneurship linked in turn to politics, punitive expeditions conceived by owners and managers of companies who would have availed themselves as material executors of the raids characters of the ‘Ndrangheta gang «Arena-Nicoscia» established in the Veronese area.
The loot
The prosecution papers, in fact, narrate particularly disturbing episodes, such as a break-in for the purpose of robbery in the private club River Club in via Pacinotti in Verona: two of the 41 defendants in this new trial to the Veronese mafia – the third to start in the last 4 years – Michele Pugliese and Giovanni Sozzi, «misrepresented and using a Kalashnikov-type weapon of war, raided in the room where Sozzi hit the owner Giannandrea Napoli (who in this proceeding is both the accused and the offended party, ed.) with the butt of the Kalashnikov, causing an infringement of the fourth right rib with a prognosis of twenty days”. They took away the entire proceeds and also raided the customers: unspecified loot, it was May 18, 2008 demonstrating, according to the DDA, how far back the malfeasance of the ‘Ndrangheta in the Veronese area goes.
The victims
A local La Scala mafia which, according to the investigators, also struck outside the region: two ruthless robberies carried out in the space of just two days at the same branch of the «Florence Savings Bank»armed and with kidnapping, in Prato in 2013, for a total loot of 2 million and 400 thousand euros. “Excursions” outside the province aside, the fulcrum of the (evil) actions attributed by the DDA to the Scaliger dome still remains Verona. Among the victims also appears Stefano Zambon involved in the fraudulent bankruptcy of Mondial Fruit, «a Montecchia di Crosara company used – the prosecutors write – to issue false invoices, the proceeds of which were then laundered through the purchase of works of art.” Well: Zambon, for the DDA, turned to Domenico Mercurio (now considered “repentant”, but still accused also in this third trial of the Scaliger mafia, ed.) for protection after the threats received from former business partners. Domenico Mercurio therefore involved his uncle Santino “in the deal”. Mercurio and Alfredo Antonio Giardino “il Papaniciaro” who, according to the prosecution, resolved disagreements with Zambon’s former partners and then demanded 150 thousand euros from the latter for “services rendered”. From there, against Zambon, they set off «intimidatory acts and threats» signed by the Scaliger dome: a fire at the driveway gate, rifle shots fired at his home from a car stolen and then set on fire. In the end, Zambon gave in and paid: 80 thousand euros in two tranches, “giving in to the demands of his tormentors in the face of serious acts of intimidation”.
The same retaliations perpetrated by the ‘ndrina of Verona, based on the accusations, against the owners of the «Du De Picche» gaming hall in via Santa Teresa in Verona: «Giannandrea Napoli, Nicola Toffanin and Michele Pugliese, managers of the New Double Up gaming hall , together with Pasquale Pullano and Giuseppe Cozza, all members of the local Scaliger group led by Antonio Giardino known as Totareddu, forced the managers of Du De Picche not to open a new games room in competition with the New Double Up”. The “how” is easy to say: three of them set fire to Du De Picche, thus setting fire to every entrepreneurial ambition of the owners. A mafia association, the one headed by boss Totareddu, which also aimed at the arms market: among the DDA’s complaints, there is in fact the detention of “three bags containing weapons and ammunition, one of which was found in 2020 in San Martino Buon Albergo” and even the sale of “a device explosive of the Pipe Bomb type”. And then, in the varied collection of ‘Ndrangheta specializations’, appear the consolidated fabrication of false invoices ‘to evade income and value added taxes’, and even ‘disputes for the control of drug dealing’ which arose between the clan Giardino and the well-known Veronese Sartor family, against which the Veronese cell launched a violent robbery. A dispute over drugs that the boss Totareddu himself resolved by bringing 700 euros to the Sartors «as compensation for the robbery he suffered, going armed with a gun to a bar in the White Goose Village, neighborhood that has always been characterized by the strong presence of the Sartors”.
