those who did not pay were kidnapped

They threatened their victims boasting of relationships (not yet proven by investigators) with Casamonica and the “Neapolitans.” Traders in the districts of Portuense, Marconi and Trastevere, but also those on the coast, were drowned, even during the period of economic crisis caused by Covid-19.

They had established a structured system based on a Café in via Ettore Rolli and, if someone did not pay or was late in paying the debt, they were kidnapped and threatened with weapons and sticks by the most violent man in the group, an unsuspecting school bus driver . From Rome.

Door operation (anti) wear

This is the system of usurers discovered and dismantled by the investigators of the Flying Brigade – Section ‘Crimes against Heritage’ who carried out six precautionary measures issued by the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the local Court, after having identified and reconstructed the criminal deeds of the gang. that granted loans with usurious interest to several small businessmen and people in economic difficulties in the southeast area of ​​the capital.

At the end of the ‘Sportello (Anti) Usury’ operation, the suspects, between 45 and 82 years old, are charged with the crimes of aggravated usury and extortion, aggravated injuries and abusive exercise of economic activity. A group that, as it emerged, stopped at nothing, also taking advantage of the difficulties of small entrepreneurs during the Covid-19 period.

The gang of usurers of the Café

The association, as confirmed by the Mobile Squad, had installed the operational base at the CAF counter in via Ettore Rolli, where appointments were made with clients, materially granted loans and collected.

Here the 78-year-old MA, totally absorbed in the activity of usury and with criminal charges for similar acts, removed the ranks of the group. The man, who according to reports from the Flying Squad in RomaToday manned the counter of the Tax Assistance Center, used that place because it was a pool of possible victims.

His “partner” CR (82 years old), already in close contact with other loan sharks in the area, also participated in the “administrative management” of the branch, while for the recovery of loans from the victims, MA made use of the collaboration of a 57-year-old BB from Abruzzo with various precedents of the police, and VP, especially exploiting the violent modalities of the latter, whose work, as the police explain, “was characterized by its strong violent nature, expressing an unusual danger“.

School bus driver violence

VP, 40 years from Rome, although with a clean record and a school bus driver by profession, he has been in the circle of Roman users for more than fifteen years: “Of an unsuspected character characterized by the most marked criminal temperament among the suspects, he is the recipient of the order of preventive detention in prison, also in light of his aggressive conduct capable of terrorizing the victims of usury. In fact, on several occasions he threatened the victims with firearms and used violence, taking them to isolated places and demanding the promise of payment or failure to report.“This is how the researchers describe it.

Weapons that, as reconstructed by RomaToday, the man obtained through his father, “familiar” pistols that he habitually held, which were used when kidnapping with rays was carried out on those who did not pay the balance regularly and then hid, so that they will not find them. investigated.

The resistance of the victims was also overcome by taking advantage of the intimidating force dictated by the victims’ belief that people belonging to “Neapolitan” criminal organizations or those attributable to the Casamonica family were tracking them. Reports, these, (yet) not confirmed by those who investigate.

The Fiumicino branch

Also among those restricted to house arrest are BSG 47 years old with a clean record employed in the car buying sector, and DR 45 years old, from Rome with a history of property crimes and owner of a similar branch of Caf in Fiumicino , both endowed with significant economic capabilities deduced from their ability to borrow money frequently. And the Caf de Fiumicino was used by the gang to kidnap the “clientele” and manage the merchants who came from the neighborhoods closest to the coast.

Against the Romans SF, 49, and CMC, 59, the latter owner of a service agency in the capital, instead a complaint was filed in a state of freedom and a house search was carried out.

The “stagnation” model to ‘strangle’ entrepreneurs

It all started with the complaint of an owner of a club, a bar, who last November went to the police because he was tired of paying and now doubled over in debt. The investigations, carried out in this way between the end of 2019 and the first months of 2020, thus reconstructed the tasks carried out by each suspect and the extortion methods. All of this, the researchers explain, took place through “a specific illegal project that consists of the systematic granting of money loans at usurious interest to individuals in economic difficulties, with the addition of increases that are imposed in case of delinquency“.

The scheme followed for granting loans came to light through inquiries, so it was found that the interest charged to be paid monthly fluctuated between 20 and 40%. All of this, as Flying Squad points out, was the so-called model “at a standstill“: the victim, in fact, was forced to pay a monthly fixed interest that, although very high, did not affect the principal amount.

Basically, if a man asked the group for a loan of 50 thousand euros, above the initial 50 thousand euros, per month he had to pay a kind of tax that fluctuated between 20 and 40% of the 50 thousand euros of the debt initial. All of this until he got out of the extortion tunnel. And so the extortion took place as a kind of multiplier.

The pandemic hasn’t stopped business

And the extortion did not stop even during the emergency dictated by the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, the victims, to overcome financial difficulties, had resorted to usurious loans and ended up being victims of their creditors even during the last months. The investigator at the moment has certified the presence of just under 10 people who ended up on the canvas of the gang of loan sharks of the Caf, but does not exclude that there may be others.

With the execution of the precautionary measures, VP was associated with the Regina Coeli prison, while the other five were restricted to house arrest and two denounced. During the house searches, important probative material was also recovered, including notes with the names of the victims that are now being examined by the Judicial Authority.