Two acquittals were confirmed and two more were added in the second degree; moreover, twelve of the eighteen convictions were re-determined.. This is the outcome of the appeal of the abbreviated trial arising from the“Petrolmafia” investigation on the interests of the Vibo clans in the hydrocarbon trade sector. The Court of Appeal of Catanzaro (president Alessandro Bavin, with Maria Rosaria di Girolamo and Assunta Maiore on the side) confirmed the acquittals already decided by the district preliminary hearing judge on 5 October 2022 for Filippo Fiarè, 66 years old from San Gregorio d’Ippona, and his fellow countryman, 61 years old Gregorio Giofrè. To these were added the acquittals on appeal of Gerardo Caparrotta, 55 years old from Sant’Onofrio who had been sentenced to 4 years in the first instance, and Antonio Ricci, 64 years old from Montecorvino Pugliano to whom the preliminary hearing judge had inflicted 2 years and 6 months.
The sentences
Sentences confirmed instead for Pasquale Gallone (6 years, considered the right-hand man of the boss Luigi Mancuso, sentenced to 30 years in the ordinary trial) and Giuseppe Barbieri (6 years of imprisonment). Sentences re-determined for Francescantonio Anello (34-year-old from Philadelphia considered a member of the clan of the same name) and Daniele Prestanicola (both 6 years compared to the 7 imposed in the first degree).
Sentences also reformed for Giovanni Carvelli (3 years, 3 months and 20 days instead of 3 years and 4 months), Armando Carvelli (3 years, 1 month and 20 days instead of 3 years and 2 months), Angelo Ucchino (3 years, 1 month and 20 days instead of 3 years and 2 months), Salvatore Ucchino (3 years, 7 months and 20 days instead of 3 years and 8 months), Vincenzo Zera Falduto (2 years, 9 months and 20 days instead of 3 years and 2 months), Alessandro Primo Tirendi (6 years, 7 months and 20 days instead of 6 years and 8 months), Salvatore Giorgio (7 years, 9 months and 20 days instead of 7 years and 10 months), Salvatore Rigillo (7 years, 1 month and 3 days instead of 7 years and 10 months), Orazio Romeo (3 years and 10 months instead of 5 years), Giuseppe Mercadante (3 years and 1 month compared to 4 years and 6 months).
The charges contested to varying degrees by the DDA were mafia-style association, extortion, money laundering, reinvestment of money of illicit origin in economic activities, fictitious registration of assets, tax and excise evasion also through the issuing and use of invoices for non-existent transactions, counterfeiting and use of simplified accompanying documents. For the Catanzaro DDA, a sort of cartel between clans would have paved the way for the climb towards the oligopoly of petroleum products. The investigation would therefore have revealed the “new techniques of penetration of the ‘ndrangheta into the economy”. Business that would have seen as its main “shareholder” the Mancuso clan of Limbadi that, through two Milanese brokers and its own emissary in the Lombard capital, had managed to hook up with the top management of a Kazakh company leader in the extraction sector, with which an attempt had also been made to build an oil pipeline in the Vibo Valentia area.