MESSINA – Mafia association, extortion, fraudulent transfer of values, kidnapping, political-mafia electoral exchange, aggravated injuries, illegal possession and carrying of weapons, association aimed at drug trafficking: these are the accusations contested by the Dda of Messina, led by the prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia, to 33 people involved in a joint operation of the Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza and Police against the Messina mafia clans.
For 21, pre-trial detention was ordered in prison, for 10 house arrest, for 2 the obligation to report to the judicial police.
The operation is the result of various investigative activities carried out by the Investigative Unit of the Provincial Command of the Carabinieri of Messina, of the GICO of the Guardia di Finanza and of the Flying Squad, coordinated by the DDA, which allowed to reveal the organization charts and the affairs of the clans in extortion, drug trafficking and control of economic activities in the field of catering and betting.
In particular, the investigations of the Carabinieri they concerned the mafia gang that controls the Messina district of “Provinciale” headed by the boss Giovanni Lo Duca and led to the seizure of a bar used as a logistical base by the clan.
Investigations by the Guardia di Finanza they hit the activities of the criminal group with Salvatore Sparacio at the top, in the «Fondo Pugliatti» district, documenting the control of economic activities and leading to the seizure of a company in the gaming and betting sector.
At the center of the investigation by the Police Headquarters instead there was the clan led by Giovanni De Luca, rooted in the “Maregrosso” district and always active in controlling the security of night clubs and in drug trafficking. The clan was already involved in the 2019 investigation called Flower. The three groups have very close profiles of connection, adopt common criminal strategies and operate in full agreement by dividing the control of the territory of the respective areas.
The mafia clans of Messina “They exercised a capillary control” of the districts and “any initiative taken in the district was subject to the preventive” placet “of Giovanni Lo Duca who proposed himself as a subject capable of replacing the State in the management of” disputes “in the territory”.
In particular, the investigations of the Carabinieri of Messina concerned, as mentioned, the mafia consortium hegemonic in the Messina district of “Provinciale” headed “by the well-known mafia exponent Giovanni Lo Duca”, active, among other things, in extortion to the detriment of commercial businesses and in the trafficking of drugs and led to the seizure of a bar used as the logistical base of the mafia association.
The boss and the territory
Giovanni Lo Duca he was in jail for 13 years, some of them 41 bis, and as soon as he was released from prison he returned to the leadership of the clan. Today, however, he returned to his cell arrested by the Carabinieri, Finance and Police coordinated by the Dda of the city of the Strait. The investigations, launched after Lo Duca’s release, ascertained that the mafia boss had resumed the reins of the organization and was recognized as a criminal reference point in the area, intervening “authoritatively” in the resolution of disputes between members of crime. After almost two years of wiretapping and observation services, the carabinieri documented how his clan, through the systematic use of threats and violence, with beatings and punitive expeditions, had managed to assert full power and control the economic activities of the area. .
The base of operations was the “Pino” bar run by Anna Lo Duca, sister of the mafia boss who spent her days in the club and there she met the other mafia exponents to plan extortion and sports betting also on behalf of a foreign bookmaker. The bar was seized. The boss managed the “disputes” in the area (a woman had turned to him to have an underage child released who had been detained against his will by a convict who wanted to punish him for the insults posted on Facebook). The Duke would have intervened obtaining the boy’s release.
Mafia and politics
There is also a candidate for the Messina City Council, not elected in 2018, among those arrested in the maxi operation. Finished in handcuffs Natalino Summa, 52, who in the spring of 2018 was a candidate for the city council in the city of the Strait. But on June 10, 2018, he was not elected. The man is accused of an exchange vote.
According to the indictment Summa, subjected to house arrest, would have paid ten thousand euros for the electoral support of the Sparacio clan. The technical investigations of the Peloritan investigators made it possible “to capture some unequivocal conversations”, inherent in the proof of the offer of money, for a sum equal to 10,000 euros, carried out “to the boss by the political candidate, so that he could procure an adequate number of votes for his own electoral climb “, explain the investigators.
This procurement business “He saw in Francesco Sollima, 52, considered a trade union between the politician Natalino Summa and the boss Salvatore Sparacio, whom the aspiring city councilor met with his father Antonino Summa, 81”. “The tests carried out have made it possible to document how the illicit agreement reached made it possible to collect a total of 350 votes in the operating districts of the mafia group, and others connected to it,” explain the investigators.