CATANIA (ITALPRESS) – An organization formed by at least 18 international drug dealers was released at the dawn of today in Italy and Spain during a transnational anti-drug operation, which in several occasions led to the seizure of 1.718 kilos of drugs, between hashish and marijuana. Twelve people were arrested. The amazing substance served to supply the squares of eastern Sicily. The blitz, led by the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Catania and the Policia de Barcelona, led to the seizure of goods and economic-financial activities for a value not less than a million euros. The operation, codenamed Farfalla, was developed under the aegis of the Dda of Catania and the Court number 7 of the Section of Civil and preliminary investigation of the first degree of Sant Feliu de Llobregat, with the coordination of the Eurojust Agency of the European Union for criminal judicial cooperation of the Aja and the National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Direction of Rome, as well as with the support of the Europol, the contrast agency The national authorities of the Province of Catania and the Central Service for the investigation of organised crime, as well as the agents of the Direcciòn general de la Policìa del Cuerpo Nacional de Barcelona – Unidad de Droga y Crimen Organizado and Unidad de Delincuencia Económica y Fiscal have carried out, in execution of two measures for the application of personal and real measures, on request of the Italian Procuracy, For 2 other subjects, the ban on expatriation was established with the obligation to submit to the judicial police authority for the other 4 subjects. All the people involved are investigated, for various reasons, by association with criminals aimed at the organized international traffic of narcotic substances, with the aggravating for the promoter of the availability of weapons, for detention and drug dealing and recycling. In Spain and Italy mobile goods, property, financial assets and cash were seized for a value not less than a million euros, including a prestigious villa located in a residential district of Barcelona and five between cars and motorcycles.
In a coordinated and contextual manner, with the help of the financiers of the First Group of Catania, of the Companies of Acireale, Riposto and Paternò and of the etnee cynofile units of the Anti-terrorism Society and ready-to-use (eighty units), as well as of additional units of the Spanish police (sixty-five Spanish agents), have been carried out many searches in the province of Catania and in Barcelona, that they have been able to become plants of the thousand The activity involves the completion of the investigations carried out by the Yellow Flames of the Nucleo Pef of Catania-Gico, in co-delegates with the Scico and the agents of the Nacional Catalan Policia that, in the within of a joint investigative team Italy-Spain constituted within Eurojust, have allowed to delineate, on a clue, the existence of a structured criminal studalizio, operating stable between At the top of the organization the investigators and investigators place, as a promoter, organizer and financier, a forty-seven-year-old Catanian moved to Barcelona The inquired, with the help of people of trust or its service in national and Iberian territory, would have managed both the production in own of marijuana within the property in its availability and the supply of the astonishment from third-party vendors, also organizing Recently under arrest in scourgency in Spain for possession of marijuana and recipient of the measure of the ban on expatriation, the promoter of the partnership was identified and arrested in Catania where he had clandestinely gone a few days ago, not knowing he was constantly monitored. As part of the criminal society, the Catanian partner who emigrated to Spain, also Sicilian, would have played a strategic role within the organization taking care of the preparatory phases of the shipment and processing of the astounding substance, with accounting and evaluation of the quantities, control of the appearance of the product and management of the cultivation environments (irrigation systems, antiparasitic treatments). The Catalan couple, also for this reason, is investigated for money laundering. Three other members of the sodalitium, two brothers of fifty-four years the eldest and fifty-three years the minor, together with one and forty-eight years, all of Catania, would have transported cash from Italy to Spain, the result of the marketing of the narcotic in the province of Etnea, also assisting the subjects dedicated to the management of the indoor plantations of narcotics. One of these would also be involved in the sale of narcotics into the ethnic territory of narcotics, providing jointly with his brother, to the observance of narcotics that can be traced back to the criminal group in a property in their availability in Belpasso (Catania). The third party, moreover, is accused of having contributed also to finance the criminal activity of the group, also collaborating with other members of the so-called “bacinella” for the collection of money on behalf of the association, holding together with a quarter affiliate of thirty-five years, the so-called “bacinella”, the common case, dealing with the latter to issue compensation to the members of the criminal offence. The investigation has also allowed to identify some “fighters” for the management of plantations, for the logistics and for the transport of narcotics from Spain to Italy. In particular, four spanish citizens would have been employed daily in indoor hemp crops in iberian territory, alternating with each other and receiving systematically from the promoter the compensation for their contribution to the association of the inquenziale, while a further fifty-year-old catanian subject, although not organically inserted in the association, would have worked on certain occasions for the management of the transport of large drug matches connected through a society to it reducible.
In the course of the investigation, on the basis of the clueal picture acquired, in several stages, both in Italy and in Spain, investigators and investigators have led to the arrest in scourgency of thirteen subjects (ten in national territory and three in the Iberian one), for detention and shooting of narcotic substances reaching the seizure of over 900 kilos between hasish and marijuana, in a plantation of Indian hemp in Mascali (Chnia). Among these, the seizure carried out in the common investigative team, operating in Spain has allowed the Policia nacional of Barcelona, to intercept a load of about 179 kilos of marijuana and 156 kilos of hashish, with a contextual arrest of three suspects in scourage and in Italy, near the Aeolian Islands, the financiers of the Nucleo Pef of Catania and It has also been possible to bring back to the criminal compagine an additional load of 273 kilos of marijuana and hashish seized from the Civitavecchia Group of the Guardia di Finanza in the course of ordinary checks carried out at the local harbour port of call and a match of 60 kilos of hashish and marijuana received from some members of the sodalizio in the province of Catania. In this context and on the basis of the seizure performed, it was possible to document the evolution in the time of the methods of occultation of the narcotic: in a first phase, the transport would take place on “gomma”, hiding the narcotic inside banks of fruits and vegetables loaded on trucks opening direct to Catania after the treatment of sea Barcelona-Civitavecchia (Rome); subsequently, the games of drugs would be hidden inside large animals Finally, the criminal group would have further diversified transport to Italy, also using maritime routes. Finally, specific economic-patrimony assessments have been developed jointly in Italy and Spain with regard to subjects of greater thickness of the criminal organization in order to reconstruct illicitly accumulated assets in the two States, subject to seizure.
– photo press office Guardia di Finanza –
(ITALPRESS).
