“Clone” investigation into stolen car trafficking: the Court of Crotone issues five convictions and five acquittals

The ordinary trial resulting from the “Clone” investigation by the Crotone Prosecutor’s Office into an alleged ring of cars that were allegedly stolen and then reinserted into the local market ended with five convictions and five acquittals. This is what the Court of Crotone decided this evening. The judging panel chaired by Alfonso Scibona only partially accepted the requests of the public prosecutor Umberto Iurlaro who, in the indictment last March, had called for ten convictions. As you will remember, the operation began on 18 January 2019 with 6 arrests carried out by the Carabinieri of the Cirò Marina Company. The blitz, which in the past led to 6 plea agreements and a shortened sentence, would have allowed the investigators to defeat an alleged criminal organization between Cirò Marina, Catanzaro, Palmi and Turin dedicated to the purchase of medium and large-sized cars in lower Campania, which were stolen in Italy and, once equipped with new documents for vehicles regularly circulating in Spain, were destined to be re-registered and resold at advantageous prices in Crotone. The investigations started from the intuition of a soldier from the Cirò Marina Army. In fact, the policeman, carrying out a check on a car during a checkpoint, noticed that something was wrong with the chassis number of the car that was seized. The checks revealed that the car had the same chassis number as a vehicle circulating in Spain. Hence the start of investigations that would have allowed the investigators to trace the hypothesized criminal system that would have been promoted by Antonio Anania (sentenced to 11 years, 1 month and 10 days in prison) and by Salvatore Papaianni (8 years, 10 months and 20 days). According to the investigators, the procedure for registering cars with Iberian documentation in our country was started through Francesco Maietta’s car registration agency (for him 5 years and 8 months in prison). In doing so, the vehicles would have been “cloned” and subsequently resold at much lower prices than the market ones, through the dealerships of Mario Filippelli in Cirò Marina and Lino and Franco Donato Farace in Turin. The sentence: Antonio Anania, 11 years, 1 month and 10 days in prison; Salvatore Papaianni, 8 years, 10 months and 20 days; Francesco Maietta, 5 years and 8 months; Gianluca Aloisio, 2 years old; Vincenzo Nigro, 2 years old. Those acquitted: Mirko Bettoni; Giacomo Pantaleone Elia; Daniela Pucci; Olimpia Ifrim; and Salvatore Alfieri.