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A river of cocaine between the Côte d’Azur and the Riviera dei Fiori, with the shadow of the ‘Ndrangheta to act as a link between organized and common crime. The number of arrests made by the Carabinieri del Ros de Genoa and the Gendarmerie Nationale de Marseille and Paris has risen to 46. An impressive bombardment, the one at dawn in Italy and France, with seizures of assets for 900 thousand euros.
On the Italian front, a preventive custody order was issued against 13 subjects investigated for possession and trafficking of arms and drugs, manufacture and possession of false identity documents and complicity in the inaction of an affiliate of the ‘Ndrangheta. Instead, the French authorities issued restrictive measures for 33 subjects, accused of armed gang, association destined to import and export drugs and weapons, money laundering and robbery. The coordination of Eurojust and the help of the French liaison magistrate and the District Anti-Mafia Directorate are decisive in the exchange of information.
The activity was triggered by the convergence between the investigations carried out in Italy and France on Carmelo Sgrò, a builder living in San Remo, linked, also by parental ties, to the Gallico de Palmi clan, and a French drug trafficker in relations with the Magnoli family of Gioia Tauro, who has lived on the French Riviera for years.
The investigations made it possible to identify the existence of an active network between Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands interested in the trade and distribution of arms and large quantities of drugs. In particular, the Ros de Genoa investigations, started in 2018, made it possible to reconstruct multiple supplies of drugs (cocaine, hashish and marijuana) and weapons (including weapons of war such as Skorpion and AK 47 – Kalashnikov) between Sgrò and the French suspect. held respectively at the head of the networks operating in Liguria and the French Riviera, with subsidiaries in Belgium and the Netherlands. But that’s not all, as part of the activity, 5 individuals were arrested for drug trafficking and the distribution channels of drugs in Liguria were rebuilt. Finally, a group of Albanians who supplied the criminal circuit with large quantities of cocaine were identified.
Subsequent investigations into the family context of Sgrò revealed that it would have favored the inaction of Filippo Morgante, a prominent exponent of the Gallico clan (displacement, supply of false identity documents, making properties available even abroad and supporting him financially with the proceeds of illegal). In addition, Sgrò himself would have used members of the clan, linked to the Calabrian Magnoli family of drug traffickers based in Vallauris (F), to recover in France a batch of 11 kg of cocaine that had been stolen by French suspects (as a supplier he had a group of Albanians).
The investigations carried out in France, initiated after a large seizure of hashish from Spain, in addition to confirming the relevant interests in the drug trafficking sector, have allowed us to collect investigative elements on the availability by subjects residing in France of numerous properties used. drug processing and storage, and to determine complex illicit product laundering operations carried out through the purchase of goods, luxury properties and commercial activities in France.
