The one carried out by the police is one of the largest recent drug seizures in the city. In fact, a total of 12 kilograms of narcotic substances is not a small amount and could open up new scenarios to the investigators’ eyes in the geography of drug dealing in the southern area. In the spotlight now is Fondo Fucile, or rather a resident of the neighborhood: Umberto Suraci, 40 years old, originally from Reggio Calabria. He was arrested and taken to Gazzi prison, because he was caught in the act of possession of narcotic substances for the purpose of dealing. Today, the validation hearing and the interrogation are scheduled before the judge for preliminary investigations of the Court of Messina Alessia Smedile. He is assisted by the lawyer Pietro Venuti.
The suspect was found in possession of 9.6 kilograms of hashish, 1.9 kilograms of marijuana, 146 grams of heroin and another 34 of cocaine. All the “stuff” was contained in a bag, hidden inside a house in Fondo Fucile. The blitz by the staff of the Flying Squad of the Messina Police Headquarters, carried out with the help of canine units from the Catania Police Headquarters, dates back to last Monday. The officers knocked on the forty-year-old’s door at the height of an info-investigative activity. Suspecting that he might be hiding drugs, they set up the control service, which then resulted in the huge seizure.
The police, who operated with the coordination of the deputy prosecutor Alice Parialò, also locked up a vacuum packaging machine, two transparent films, a silver envelope, and some cellophane bags. Much of the narcotic was also divided into 73 blocks. The fact that the police rang Suraci’s doorbell with the drug-sniffing dogs in tow suggests that he had been kept under observation for some time and that they were just waiting for the right moment to trigger the house search of the Fondo Fucile property. The investigators will now try to trace the supply channels of the drugs and also the possible network of drug users. The twelve kilograms of drugs were found in a black canvas bag and the forty-year-old is also charged with the aggravating circumstance of “the large quantity of narcotics detained”.
