The trial relating to one of the sections of the “Millennium” investigation has come to life before the Collegiate Court of Locri, which has already led to the indictment of 16 defendants accused, in various capacities, of mafia association, drug trafficking, aiding and abetting, drug dealing, attempted extortion and other crimes. The first witness indicated by the Prosecutor’s Office is Lieutenant Colonel of the Carabinieri Valerio Palmieri, serving at the Investigative Unit of Reggio Calabria. Responding to questions from deputy prosecutor Matteo Campagnaro, serving at the anti-mafia district prosecutor’s office, the officer illustrated the investigative elements which, over the years, have contributed to defining the organizational framework of the ‘Ndrangheta, focusing in particular on its unitary nature and on the relationships that connect the different territorial branches of the criminal organisation.
During the deposition, Palmieri recalled the results of some of the most significant anti-mafia operations of the last decades, including “Crimine” and “Mandamento Ionico”, coordinated by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Reggio Calabria, as well as numerous other investigations which documented the presence and operations of the ‘Ndrangheta both in various Italian regions and abroad. The investigator reconstructed the associative structure of the organization, the internal rules, the mechanisms of connection between the gangs and the levels of coordination existing between the different cliques, also highlighting the apical role attributed in numerous investigations to the Barbaro “Castani” family of Platì. An investigative framework which, according to what was illustrated in the courtroom, places the association among the groups with the greatest weight in the balance of Calabrian organized crime. The examination of the witness will continue in the next hearing, set for 15 October, when the testimony will go into the merits of the individual positions of the defendants involved in the “Millennium” operation.
The investigation, started in 2018, affected the entire territory of the three districts of the province of Reggio Calabria and involved a total of 64 suspects. At the center of the proceeding is the alleged operation of the Barbaro-Castani consortium, historically rooted in Platì and considered by investigators capable of projecting its influence also in Northern Italy. According to the reconstruction of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate, the group would have exercised its intimidating force through extortion, damage with weapons and explosives, laundering and reinvestment of illicit capital, as well as a complex trafficking of narcotic substances with transnational connections. The investigations also brought to light the so-called “Castani System”, defined by the investigators as an alleged control mechanism for public procurement which would have extended its influence well beyond the borders of Locride, following operational guidelines which, according to the prosecution, from Platì reached as far as Lombardy.
Palmieri’s deposition thus marks the start of the preliminary phase of the hearing, called to outline the associative context in which the charges leveled against the defendants are placed and the role that each would have played in the organization at the center of Millennium.