From the wheat racket to the hospital parking lots, the Scu di Campana in Brindisi: 8 arrests

BRINDISI – Extortion of agricultural entrepreneurs, wheat fraud to impose who had to buy it and at what price, even extortion for the external parking lot of the Perrino hospital in Brindisi. All the money that was needed to support the prisoners, the prison chiefs and their families. The Sacra Corona Unita still exists and operates throughout the territory. The hands of the strip headed by Francesco Campana, during years in prison (in Milan) for 416 bis, on the illegal activities of the city of Brindisi, but also of other towns in the province.

The mobile team coordinated by the Dda of Lecce in the early morning of today arrested 8 people and for another 5 the obligation to sign was ordered. Prison has been set up for Francesco Campana 47 (already in prison), Enrico Colucci 66, Alessandra Di Lauro 54, Giovanni Donatiello 59, Cesario Monteforte 54, Angelo Pagliara 57, Antonio Signorile 50 and Valenti Teodoro 47. Obligation to sign instead for Riza MARA Riza, 31, Giuseppe Monteforte 34, Lucia Monteforte 51 (Campana’s wife) and the children Marco Sperti 33 years old and Simone Sperti 23 years old.

Among those arrested was Giovanni Donatiello de Mesagne, who had returned free for two years, having served 32 years in prison with life imprisonment. According to the elements collected by the investigators, Donatiello, despite being under special surveillance, surrounded Mesagne and continued his illicit activity, recovering old contacts with the crime. “The prison had not made him change his mind at all,” said Commissioner Ferdinando Rossi, who once again reiterated the need for collaboration from everyone, from the institutions to the citizens. “I have a clear idea of ​​this territory – he said – the mafia exists, and we have the means to hinder it, but collaboration is needed.” (listen to video interview)

The operation was called Old Generation, precisely in reference to the old SCU bosses who apparently never lost their power. Campana would have led the illegal activities from prison thanks to his wife, Lucía Monteforte de Brindisi, who would have acted as an intermediary and would have given instructions to the affiliates. With him, his two children Marco and Simone Sperti.

At first it was her brother Cesario Monteforte who helped Lucía Monteforte. He also used his wife Antonella Di Lauro to give orders outside during his periods of detention. His regent and reference for the SCU in Brindisi would have been Antonio Signorile.

The organization fed on numerous illicit activities, from extortion of agricultural entrepreneurs, to the specific request of 5,000 euros, to the wheat racket where the buyer imposed himself on the farmer with the demand for a precise price, and in turn asked a bribe from those who bought. But it does not end here, the Scu, this part of the Scu, also pocketed the money from one of the illegal Perrino parkers. Giuseppe Monteforte, an invalid, son of Cesario Monteforte, asked the hospital visitors for money. The man charged about 90 euros a day, a figure that was reduced by half, however, in time for Covid, so much that it creates some discontent in the organization.

At a certain point, however, the divisions begin to not be “fair”, internal tensions are created with the break between Lucía Monteforte and her brother Cesario, who begins to distance himself from Campana. In the middle of the night someone explodes with bullets under the house of the woman’s Commenda and her two children. A gesture that Campana would not have liked at all. After a while, a bomb is detonated in the Crazy Bar in viale Commenda, actually run by Cesario Monteforte. And it is precisely from these two episodes that the Flying Squad investigations begin and lead to today’s arrests.

Mon.Po.