An operation by the State Police, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Reggio Calabria, led to the arrest of two individuals from Locride accused of attempted extortion, aggravated by the mafia method.
The Flying Squad’s activity made it possible, in a short time, to retrace the stages of what immediately appeared to be the most classic of extortion attempts on ‘ndrangheta, with the approach of the entrepreneur and then the explicit request for the “contribution” for the “people in need”:
According to what emerged from the investigations, the two men, on 3 September, went to a construction site in Caulonia where renovation work on a church was underway.
Not finding the owner on site, the suspects would have expressed to the workers the need to meet him as soon as possible.
Informed of the incident by his employees, the entrepreneur immediately told everything to the Mobile police who, coordinated by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate, immediately started the investigation.
The requests for a meeting addressed to the workers continued until September 22nd, when the van in which the workers were traveling was stopped on the street by the two individuals who made yet another urgent request to “speak to the owner”.
Finally, on the morning of September 23, the two men showed up again at the construction site where the entrepreneur was present.
The two then “reprimanded” him for having started the work without “knocking anywhere”, then asking for a “helping hand for a couple of families who are not doing well”, quantifying the contribution at 20,000 euros, with a discount on the percentage, usually applied of four or five percent, on the total amount of the contracted works for approximately 800 thousand euros.
Having identified the two extortionists, the investigators of the Reggio Calabria Police Headquarters referred them to the Judicial Authority which deemed it necessary to intervene by issuing arrests and the two subjects were taken to prison.