Mafia: A large-scale operation carried out between Italy, Brazil and Switzerland

This morning, the Fiamme Gialle of the Provincial Command of Palermo and the personnel of the Brazilian Federal Police – jointly in Italy and Brazil – have launched a large-scale anti-mafia operation, ordered by the Public Prosecutor’s Office – District Anti-Mafia Directorate (DDA) of Palermo and the Second Federal Court of Rio Grande Do Norte (Brazil). This was announced by the Financial Police of Palermo. In particular, the foreign judicial authority has ordered the arrest of an entrepreneur originally from Bagheria (Pa) and who had long since moved to Natal (Brazil), together with the seizure of financial assets worth 50 million euros, as well as assets furniture and real estate attributable to 17 individuals, all under investigation, and to 12 companies operating in the real estate, construction and restaurant sectors. At the same time, the Anti-Mafia Directorate of the District of Palermo has delegated the execution of 21 searches, both in the national territory (Sicily, Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Tuscany and Veneto) and abroad (Brazil and Switzerland), in homes, business offices and professional studios. More than 100 financiers were working in the field, some of whom (belonging to the Palermo Economic-Financial Police Unit – Gico) have gone to Natal in recent days to be able to support their Brazilian colleagues in activities on the ground today. The crimes suspected by the Italian judicial authority are external participation in a mafia association, extortion, money laundering and self-laundering, fraudulent transfer of values, aggravated by the aim of having facilitated important mafia families. This morning’s operation reaches the culmination of a complex investigative activity, launched by the Anti-Mafia Directorate of the Palermo District with the aim of shedding light on possible joint interests of leading exponents of Palermo’s Cosa Nostra in business structures in Italy and abroad (particularly in Brazil). Of fundamental importance in this perspective is the use by the Palermo Judicial Authority of the instruments of international judicial cooperation and, in particular, the initiative to set up in 2022 a “Joint Investigation Team” (Sic) with the judicial authorities and the police of the Federative Republic of Brazil. All in consultation with the National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate and with the participation of the Italian National Member at Eurojust. In this context, the general investigative activities carried out have revealed traces of significant mafia-related capital investments in entrepreneurial initiatives and in companies under Brazilian law, all cleverly shielded through the use of front men and the intervention of shell companies.

According to the investigation’s reconstructions, the money would have reached its destination through sophisticated money laundering mechanisms, based, among other things, on the use of multiple transit accounts opened in financial institutions, mainly abroad. At the head of this system is one of the most authoritative men of honour in Palermo, regent of the Pagliarelli mafia district since 2018 (until his arrest in April 2021), who would have had a business alliance with the aforementioned entrepreneur from Bagheria since 2000. They are established professionals who provide them with the necessary support to carry out complex business operations, in Italy and abroad (Brazil, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore); among them two agents in Emilia Romagna, a region where the man of honour, after a previous period of detention, had lived for several years. Thanks to the support of this network, after creating some lucrative business initiatives on the national territory (including a well-known resort in the province of Trapani) from 2016 onwards, the partnership would have shifted the focus of its interests mainly to Brazil, where in an initial phase it could also count on the support of another Roman entrepreneur, who was later arrested by the Brazilian authorities in 2019 for being considered the instigator of a murder that took place five years earlier in Natal. It was precisely to the latter that the honorary man from Palermo would have personally paid huge amounts of capital that came directly from the Cosa Nostra treasury (an initial maxi-financing is supposed, for around 830 thousand euros, which would have been provided in two tranches in cash, between 2016 and 2017), through which the organization, as a hidden partner, would have become part of numerous companies already present in the country. From 2019, the Pagliarelli regent would move to Natal, where he joined the Bagheria entrepreneur who had already arrived in the country in 2016, in order to be able to follow directly the development of very important business initiatives on the ground, while continuing to manage the criminal activities in Palermo. Among the most important deals were some activities in the restaurant sector and, above all, the launch, through the group companies, of a plan for the development of vast building areas close to the north-east coast of Brazil. A project that fits in with numerous other transactions in the field of real estate, capable of guaranteeing exceptional profits. Precisely in light of these prospects, according to a preliminary estimate, the total value of assets assumed over time by all the companies in the orbit of the criminal association could be quantified at more than 500 million euros.

Also read other news on Nova News

Click here and receive updates via WhatsApp

Follow us on Nova News social channels at TwitterLinkedIn, Instagram, Telegram