At the disposal of the Palermo office of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO – European Public Prosecutor’s Office), the Guardia di Finanza carried out a detention order of 13 people who were allegedly part of a transnational criminal network that operated between Tunisia and Sicily and that managed the smuggling of cigarettes from North Africa.
Six of the arrested by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office received citizenship income directly or through their family, a benefit that will now be suspended for them. The specialists of the Gico, through the examination, comparison and cross-referencing of economic-financial information obtained through the various databases, have also ascertained the disproportion between the assets available to the suspects and the declared income. The European Public Prosecutor has therefore also ordered the urgent preventive seizure of a boat, motor vehicles and motor vehicles attributable to the suspects for a total value of 150,000 euros.
The investigations conducted by the Palermo Gico economic-financial police unit, coordinated by the prosecutor Gery Ferrara, with telephone and environmental wiretapping, stalking, stalking and videotaping, made it possible to discover two criminal organizations in business with each other. The first, with operational bases in the province of Trapani and Tunisia, was in charge of finding smuggled cigarettes and organizing illegal shipments by sea from the African coasts to Italy. The second, in the Palermo area, bought illegally introduced cigarettes wholesale and then sent them to the retail market in the Sicilian capital.
The investigations, launched in the summer of 2019, ascertained the resumption of smuggling of foreign manufactured tobacco by sea, carried out by sending boats from North Africa, the so-called “mother ships” which, at the limit of national territorial waters, they meet with small boats from Italy, the small boats on which the cases of cigarettes are transhipped. The areas most affected by the landings were the Trapani area, mainly Mazara del Vallo, Marsala and Campobello di Mazara, but some landings also took place in the Syracusan area. The cigarettes, not intercepted by the interventions of the financiers, once landed on the coast were stored in warehouses in the availability of the suspects in the Mazara area, from where the members of the Palermo organization were supplied.
In the approximately two years of investigations, the Gico of the Economic-Financial Police Unit of Palermo, thanks to the constant exchange of information with the II department of the General Command of the Guardia di Finanza and with the support of the aeronaval component of Pratica di Mare, intercepted numerous illegal shipments, arresting 36 smugglers in the act of crime. 23 tons of cigarettes were seized (mainly with Oris, Royal, Pine, Time brands), which cannot be sold in Italy because they do not comply with the production and marketing parameters required by European legislation, 10 boats (4 fishing boats and 6 fast motorboats ), worth approximately 500,000 euros and 170,000 euros in cash. If placed on the market, the smuggled cigarettes would have yielded illicit profits of 3.5 million euros, generating damage to the coffers of the European Union and the national treasury of over 6 million euros.
Precisely because of the damage to the EU budget, the investigations were called in by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, an institution that has been operational since last June and which has precisely the objective of prosecuting crimes that harm the financial interests of the Union. The arrest carried out is the first personal precautionary measure issued by the Italian office of Eppo.
These are the people involved in the investigation into the maxi cigarette smuggling between Africa and Sicily: Antonino Lo Nardo, 46, Giulio Di Maio, 35, Fabio Bruno, 29, all under arrest. Under investigation Giosafat Bruno, 31, Calogero Stassi, 28 and Alfredo Caruso, 37. Those arrested in the transnational organization: Walid Mirghli, born in Tunisia, 34, resident in Mazara del Vallo (Tp), Samir Kacem, 57, born in Tunisia, resident in Mazara del Vallo (Tp), Said Hamza, 32 years old , born in Tunisia, residing in Mazara del Vallo (Tp); Mehdi Ammari, 43, born in Tunisia, living in Campobello di Mazara (Tp); Bartolomeo Bertuglia, 53 years old, Campobello di Mazara (Tp); Francesco Bertuglia, 56 years old, Campobello di Mazara (Tp); Vito Agnello, 53, Castelvetrano, Giuseppe Licata, 55, Campobello di Mazara (Tp); Ahmed Zaabi, 43, born in Tunisia; Hassen Mohamed Hamza, 44, born in Tunisia. Investigated: Mohamed Baili, 56, born in Tunisia living in Mazara del Vallo (Tp).