REGGIO CALABRIA, 20 MAY – A criminal association aimed at committing a plurality of serious crimes such as circumvention of incapacitated persons, extortion, receiving stolen goods and laundering of illicit proceeds has been vanquished by the carabinieri of the operational department of the provincial command of Reggio Calabria and by the ‘Europol who carried out a precautionary custody order issued by the investigating judge, at the request of the Prosecutor of Locri, against 16 people. Ten were sentenced to prison and 6 to house arrest. The blitz started in Italy, Romania, the Netherlands and Germany. In Reggio, 3 ordinances were carried out and the police forces of the respective countries carried out 13 European arrest warrants. The top management of the organization is located in Romania with operational bases in Calabria and, in particular, in the territories of Reggio and the Municipalities of Bianco, Melito di Porto Salvo, Siderno, Rosarno, Bovalino and with an articulation also in Sicily, in the Municipality of Milazzo. The victims were elderly people between 70 and 90 years who often lived in conditions of loneliness, who were induced or forced, with scams or threats, to give large sums of money. Money that was given to young women, who then put them back at the top of the criminal organization. The operation, called “Transilvania”, was born from an investigation launched in 2018 after the complaint of an elderly man from a town in Locride. He had reported to the carabinieri that he had been surrounded by a young woman of Romanian nationality who, pretending to be in love with him, had induced him, within a year, to deliver them, with direct donations of cash and payments with “Money Transfer” abroad, the total sum of 20 thousand euros. According to the investigators, the illicit proceeds are not less than 760 thousand euros, of which 179 thousand euros would have been traced, through the transfer to Romania. Once the money was extorted, in fact, the suspects sent it through “Money transfer”. The investigations by the carabinieri and Europol consisted of investigations of a financial nature, wiretapping, videotaping, hearing the offended people and others who were informed of the facts. (HANDLE).
(HANDLE)
