Preventive seizure, ordered by the Review Court of Messina, of a vast area in the municipality of Messina used as an illegal solid waste landfill, as well as a business complex owned by entrepreneurs active in the waste collection and disposal sector.
Contested crimes and subjects involved
The serious compendium of circumstantial evidence collected has made it possible to contest, at present, the crimes of: Organized activity of illicit waste trafficking, committed jointly by three entrepreneurs (owners and de facto managers of the company complex). Environmental disaster. The contested illicit conduct runs from 2020 to today. Various subjects in the role of waste suppliers are also involved in the investigation.
The illicit exploitation of the Guidari stream
The investigative activity, started in June 2023, was conducted by the Carabinieri of the Messina Sud Company and by the Environmental Police Department of the Messina Municipal Police Force, with the use of shadowing, control of the territory also with drones, interceptions and acquisition of documentation. The criminal exploitation of the Guidari stream was found through the organized and unscrupulous management of a huge quantity of waste of all kinds, special and dangerous, in order to obtain huge illicit profits.
The waste, mainly waste from construction and demolition sites, was dumped at a recovery plant, where the managers, in association with the suppliers, allowed access. Subsequently, the waste was dumped into the Guidari stream, buried by the company’s employees and covered with topsoil recovered from the surrounding areas. This has led to the creation of insidious artificial barriers, dammed up by the stratification and compaction of the disposed materials, causing strong damage to the natural flow of the water and configuring an environmental disaster due to the alteration of the normal conformation of the stream, with risks of potential flooding and landslides.
Individuals identified by the cameras installed by the Prosecutor’s Office starting from June 2023 were caught dumping, with their own trucks, several tons of waste into the Guidari valley’s impluvium, over a total area of approximately 200,000 m2. Only 10% of the waste received by the plant was correctly recovered and reused.
The waste was used for public works
The technical and expert activity, carried out with the collaboration of ARPA Sicilia and ARPA Calabria and the aid of the Fire Brigade. , made it possible to ascertain the most contaminated sites, dating back the time of abandonment to 2015, the year the company started its activity. The waste from the plant, treated without the necessary regulations and accompanied by false certifications, was conferred in the construction of public works, such as the “Contemplazione” car park. This work had already been subjected to seizure in May of this year, when the analyzes ordered by the Prosecutor’s Office had confirmed the nature of waste of the filler material downloaded