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“It emerged from the investigation that the buyers used citizens’ income credit cards to pay for the supplies of narcotic substances to the Saraceno.” This is what was noted by the preliminary investigation judge of Catanzaro Mario Santoiemma who signed the precautionary custody order in prison carried out this morning by the Carabinieri of the provincial command against 24 people involved in drug trafficking and dealing throughout the province of Catanzaro. Antonio Saraceno, a 48-year-old from Girifalco, the man who is indicated by the judge as the one who would have collected the payment of the doses with the citizenship income cards used by consumers, would have had a top role in the association dedicated to drug trafficking hypothesized by the investigators of the Catanzaro DDA at the top of which would have been Davide De Santis, a 29-year-old from Cortale.
The drug warehouse in Cortale
Right in the Catanzaro municipality, De Santis used an apartment used as a warehouse for the large quantities of cocaine and marijuana which were then placed on the market. De Santis, notes the investigating judge Santoiemma, «maintained constant and direct contact with the wholesalers, establishing times and methods of narcotic supplies, as well as the operational methods necessary to implement, without the risk of being identified, the supplies and custody as well as the wholesale distribution of narcotics in the local areas. Of absolute importance – concludes the investigating judge – is the organisation’s turnover”. Raffaele Bertuca, a 49-year-old from Catanzaro, believed to be one of De Santis’ most trusted men, would have taken care of guarding the drug warehouse located in the municipality of Cortale, while Aurelio Rocco Petrilli, a 55-year-old from Girifalco, would have played the role of wholesaler, transporting the drugs from the supplier to the associates of the organization who would then have delivered them to the individual pushers for retail sale. Among them is Saraceno who, in order to get paid, in the absence of cash, had consumers hand over their citizenship income cards. «I forgot my card, cleaver (damn, ed.). I’ll give it to you next time, sorry” says the man in a conversation with De Santis, intercepted by the police. “There’s no problem – the interlocutor replies – it’s still ours for this month, a good evening.”
Petrilli and cocaine supplies in Locride
Aurelio Rocco Petrilli, a 55-year-old from Girifalco, supplied himself with large quantities of cocaine near Ardore, along the Ionian coast of Reggio Calabria, and then delivered it to the associates of the organization defeated this morning during the Catanzaro carabinieri operation called “social card” with the arrest of 24 people. During one of these trips Petrilli was stopped by the carabinieri, who were keeping an eye on him, near Davoli. A wrapper with a kilogram of cocaine appears in his Seat Leon car and the man is arrested. In his mobile phone the police found conversations from which they traced back to contacts with drug suppliers, to the place of delivery near Ardore Marina, confirmation of other trips to purchase narcotics and, above all, countless photos of bundles of banknotes worth tens of thousands of euros that the man took inside his car. Photos that Petrilli will send to another associate of the drug trafficking organization evidently as proof of the sale of drugs.