Two acquittals (that of the entrepreneur Mario Varca and Carmine Saggese but the latter due to the statute of limitations) and twenty indictments. This also opens the ordinary rite of the trial which follows the investigation by the DDA of Catanzaro against the ‘Ndrangheta gangs of Cassano. The investigation, coordinated by the public prosecutor Alessandro Riello, involves the Abbruzzese and Forastefano clans, as well as entrepreneurs from Sibaritide considered “front men” of the alleged “regents” of the area.
The preliminary hearing judge Gabriella Pede issued the sentence to the twenty-two defendants who decided to be judged using the ordinary procedure. For the twenty indicted, the trial, before the collegiate court of Castrovillari, will begin on 17 September.
The entrepreneur Mario Olimpio Varca, 63 years old, defended by the lawyers Enzo Belvedere and Cristofaro Salerno, was fully acquitted. Varca is a very well-known entrepreneur in the Cosenza area and in the Upper Ionian area and his image is thus rehabilitated after he ended up among those under investigation to the general astonishment.
The defendants include Celestino Abbruzzese, 76 years old, alias “Ciccio u zingaro”, the person who founded the historic gypsy criminal group in Sibaritide, Rosaria Abbruzzese, 50 years old, Gennaro Benedetto, 59 years old, Katia Cairo, 37 years old, Alessia Cerchiara , 31 years old, Domenico Falbo, 46 years old, Giuseppe Falbo, 57 years old, Emilio Ferrara, 47 years old, Tiziana Antonietta Giannicola, 55 years old, Marco Guidi, 34 years old, Luca Laino, 39 years old, Antonio Lo Tufo, 57 years old, Francesco Lo Nigro, 55 years old, Massimiliano Martucci, 45 years old, Lucia Mastrota, 67 years old, Rocco Milito, 51 years old, Giuseppe Mitidieri, 34 years old, Vincenzo Rovitti, 48 years old, Giancarlo Quintino Pio Russo, 70 years old, Mario Russo, 30 years old these twenty must also be added to another fifty-eight defendants who had decided to be judged in summary form. Among these, Luigi Abbruzzese, son of Franco, indicated by the anti-mafia investigators as the head of the Abbruzzese clan, Nicola “Semiasse” Abbruzzese, uncle of Luigi and brother of Luigi, stand out. “Dentuzzo”, and Leonardo “Nino” Abbruzzese.
