PALERMO (ITALPRESS) – Financial officers from the Palermo Provincial Command, as part of controls carried out in the metropolitan area of the Sicilian capital city for the prevention and suppression of illicit trafficking, arrested an incensed Palermo man and seized 1.5 kilograms of cocaine, vacuum casings, 500 pre-packaged doses of crack cocaine and 100 doses of cocaine.
In recent weeks, the Green Berets have intensified their activities to counter the spread of crack, the so-called “poor man’s drug,” also in view of the growing and worrying phenomenon of its consumption, especially among the very young. The activity thus initiated made it possible to identify a subject who, although incensed, seemed to have set up a thriving drug production and dealing activity inside his home, taking advantage of its strategic location because it is located in a narrow alley in the Noce neighborhood and, therefore, difficult to monitor.
In fact, the man, taking advantage of the favorable location of his apartment, inside which he mainly proceeded to produce crack and package small doses of cocaine, had turned the balcony of his home into a veritable “drug store.” Specifically, crack and cocaine doses, after brief telephone contact, were thrown from the balcony to the various customers or pushers positioned down there.
This modus operandi allowed the suspect to avoid direct contact or meetings with buyers, ensuring that he minimized the risk of being intercepted by law enforcement during deliveries. Having contextualized the modus operandi and ascertained the well-established and systematic influx of customers, Green Berets intervened by first following and then controlling a buyer who was walking away from the alley after picking up a dose of crack under the balcony.
Subsequently, the military decided to stop him and subject him to control. Finding him in possession of about 1,000 euros, believed to be the proceeds of the illicit activity, they then proceeded to take him to his home for the subsequent search. A veritable production and packaging plant for crack cocaine and cocaine doses was identified, corroborated by the discovery in a closet located in the bedroom of several bricks of cocaine and several plastic containers with other partially processed pieces of cocaine inside, ready to be turned into crack.
Also found were about 500 doses of crack and 100 doses of cocaine already packed in cellophane pellets and sealed with different colors of duct tape, white for crack and black for cocaine, as well as several cell phones used for contact with customers and, confirming the crack production activity, precision balances, packaging material, spoons and equipment needed and used for processing cocaine into crack. The sale of the seized substance would have earned on the market
retail revenues of more than 100,000 euros.
– Photo site Guardia di Finanza –
(ITALPRESS).
