The District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Reggio Calabria, led by Giuseppe Borrelli and supported by the deputy Walter Ignazitto and the deputies Salvatore Rossello and Andrea Sodani, has requested the indictment of 50 suspects from one branch of the “Millennium” investigation. They will have to appear before the Reggio district Gup Andrea Iacovelli, at the hearing on March 18 in the bunker courtroom in Viale Calabria. The investigation, started in 2018, involves people accused, for various reasons, of mafia association, drug trafficking, aiding and abetting, drug dealing, kidnapping, extortion and attempted extortion, electoral corruption and more. The offended parties include the Calabria Region, the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria and nine individuals and companies.
The operation, carried out by the Carabinieri, is intertwined with various criminal proceedings which would have revealed the criminal plots of some of the main clans of Locride and the Piana. The Anti-Mafia Prosecutor’s Office in particular believes it has confirmed the dynamism of the “Alvaro” consortium, active in the Tyrrhenian area, which would have equipped itself with a common fund to cover the legal expenses of the members and the support of the families of the prisoners, and of the “Barbaro-Castani”, of which the entire organizational chart would have been reconstructed. This last gang, rooted between Platì, Ardore and neighboring territories, would have extended its influence over time to the “locals” of Volpiano and Buccinasco, in Piedmont.
The conflict between gangs
The investigators also hypothesize the existence of an association aimed at favoring the ‘Ndrangheta through illegal practices of procuring votes in various electoral consultations, in particular for a candidate – who was then not elected – in the regional elections in January 2020. The alleged political-mafia exchange pacts would have taken place with representatives of the Labate, Logiudice, Serraino, Barreca, Vadalà-Talia, Piromalli, Nirta-Strangio clans, Aquino-Coluccio, Commisso-Muià, Nasone-Gaietti, Valle-Lampada, Iamonte, Morabito and Alvaro.
The investigations also revealed moments of conflict between gangs at different stages. The leaders of the Platì club, for example, would have seized an affiliate of the Alvaro family for a debt of 45 thousand euros linked to a shipment of drugs. The man would have been released only after the payment of a first tranche. The investigation also includes an extortion episode involving a man from Siderno, determined to recover 125 thousand euros paid years earlier to bribe – through alleged contacts in the Supreme Court – an unidentified magistrate, in an attempt to influence the trial against his brother, arrested in the “Il Crime” operation. The attempt failed and the man was sentenced to eight years. Finally, an extortion system was identified with the “fixing” of the companies awarded public works and of the traders intending to open sales points in the area of Sinopoli, on the Tyrrhenian side. On the Ionian side, however, the “Barbaro-Castani” gang allegedly demanded 3% of the value of the contracts from all entrepreneurs operating in the areas under its control.
The suspects
Giuseppe Francesco Abbate
Domenico Agresta
Domenico Alvaro “trappitaru”
Francesco Alvaro “ciripillu”
Francesco Paolo Alvaro
Giuseppe Alvaro
Raffaele Alvaro
Giuseppe Barbaro “u castanu”
Giuseppe Cacciola
Rocco Carbone “u cacau”
Claudio Colella
Vincenzo Condello “cece”
Antonino Federico
Domenico Iannaci
Giuseppe Laganà
Elena Modafferi
Helius Archangel Morphea
Vincenzo Muià
Domenico Pillari
Angelo Romeo
Pasquale Romeo
Stefano Romeo
Rocco Rugnetta
Vincenzo Rugnetta
Francesco Sciarrone
Rocco B. Varacalli “u longu”
Giuseppe Violi “sandwich”
Sebastiano Altomonte
Bruno Araniti
Giuseppe Barreca
Marcello Bellini
Wandering Joseph
Antonino Fallanca
Andrea Foti
Domenico Foti
Gregorio Fotia
Vincenzo Fotia
Vincenzo Giglio
Daniele Latella
Domenico Neri
Francesco Nicolò
Giovanni Antonio Nicolò
Alessandro Nicolò
Franco Mario Perrelli
Demetrius Quattrone
Pasquale Remo
Domenico Sarica
Romano Stefano
Giuseppe Trapani
Pasquale Maria Tripodi