The investigating judge of the Court of Reggio Calabria, at the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, issued eight precautionary measures (two precautionary measures in prison, two under house arrest, two prohibitions on approaching the offended parties and two suspensions from public office for one year of two members of the police force), at the conclusion of an investigation conducted by the State Police and the Guardia di Finanza on a usury affair. Nine local search decrees and a preventive seizure decree aimed at confiscation against three of the suspects were also executed, concerning sums of money and further financial resources for a total value of over 150 thousand euros, as profit from the disputed usury crimes.
Cases of wear and tear
The precautionary measures represent the epilogue of a complex investigation conducted by the Flying Squad of the Reggio Calabria Police Headquarters and by the Company of the Guardia di Finanza of Villa San Giovanni which made it possible to identify “multiple cases of usury, extortion and persecutory acts against two offended people and their respective wives, which occurred in the territories of Reggio Calabria and Catania”. The investigations arose from complaints submitted separately by a victim of usury and by the closest relatives of another victim. From the complaints it emerged that the two offended people, due to the difficult economic conditions determined by a high debt exposure, had turned to a man from Catania, who had granted them loans, for which he had demanded the repayment of sums decidedly disproportionate to the value of the credit granted, as well as the registration of the properties owned by the families of the victims, through the use of repeated and serious threats. The investigations were then extended through the execution of in-depth documentary checks, concerning the analysis of financial flows and money movements, as well as with the launch of an intense monitoring activity of the main suspects, both through technical investigations and through traditional investigations.
Threats and physical violence. Also a funeral poster
The investigations carried out made it possible to collect serious indications of crime, in particular, against the two suspects who were the recipients of precautionary custody in prison, they procured sums of money from their victims, having them promise and deliver usurious compensation for the mediation carried out. According to the precautionary measure, they, taking advantage of the state of need of the injured parties, would have carried out a mediation activity aimed at granting loans and mortgages in favor of them (in some cases, actually provided by banks and/or finance companies), asking as compensation for their interest a sum between one third and half of the value of the financed capital, as well as further money of an absolutely disproportionate value compared to what was received. Furthermore, they allegedly forced their victims to have the sums resulting from usurious interest handed over with threats such as “I’ll drown you”, “I’ll shoot you”, “I’ll kick you in front of your wife and your mother”, “if you report it I’ll kill you”. . .», as well as through physical violence (at least in three episodes). In one case, one of the loan sharks even uploaded the image of a funeral poster containing the details of one of the victims to his WhatsApp status.
Cars on fire and pets killed
On other occasions, the suspects allegedly set fire to the car used by one of the offended people and killed some animals in the home of one of the same. The criminal activity is also alleged against the wives of the two main suspects, recipients of the ban on approaching the offended parties, for the moral and material support provided to the carrying out of the husbands’ illicit conduct, through the exercise of psychological pressure and threats towards the wives of the offended parties and by providing suggestions and advice to the main suspects to evade the investigations.
The two members of the police force, according to the accusation, for a fee, helped the main suspects to track down the offended people, carrying out actual stakeouts in the places frequented by the victims, asking specific information from fellow villagers, and they also allegedly illegally handed over to one of the two main suspects microcameras and GPS detectors supplied exclusively to the police forces.