The Ministry of Justice has ordered the hard prison (art. 41 bis of the penitentiary system) for two members of the clans of Mileto, in the province of Vibo Valentia, Pasquale Pititto, 56 years old, from San Giovanni di Mileto, and Michele Silvano Mazzeo, 52 years old, from Comparni di Mileto. Pititto (in a wheelchair after an ambush in 1990) is serving a life sentence for the murder of Pietro Cosimo, killed in Catanzaro in 1990 on the orders of the Gaglianesi boss, Girolamo Costanzo.
Pititto later received a 25-year sentence as part of the Operation ‘Tirreno’ conducted in 1993 against the ‘ndrangheta by the Reggio Calabria DDA.
Together with his brother-in-law Michael Iannello (collaborator of justice and convicted for the murder of Nicolas Green), Pititto is considered the perpetrator of the murder of Vincenzo Chindamo and the attempted murder of Antonio Chindamo, crimes committed in Laureana di Borrello on 11 May 1991 on the orders of the boss Giuseppe Mancuso.
Pititto – defended by the lawyer Giovanni Vecchio – is accused of mafia association in the “Maestrale” operation in a trial underway at the Vibo tribunal.
Michael Silvano Mazzeo (assisted by the lawyer Giuseppe Di Renzo) is also a defendant in the “Maestrale” trial for drug trafficking and mafia association; he has already been sentenced on appeal to 8 years and 2 months of imprisonment in the Rippiazzo trial.