Rome: Drug trafficking association dismantled, 10 precautionary measures carried out

This morning's execution concluded a complex investigation into drug dealing conducted by the State Police in coordination with the District Anti-Mafia Directorate at the Rome Prosecutor's Office. Ten people were the recipients of as many precautionary measures issued by the Judge for Preliminary Investigations. Association, possession and dealing of narcotics were the crimes contested.

The investigation began in late 2021, when investigators from the Spinaceto police station identified the thread of a large network that moved drugs in the south-west suburbs of the capital. After the first findings, the Judicial Police activity was coordinated by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate at the Rome Prosecutor's Office.

Some people already known to the police ended up in the investigators' sights right from the start, including a 49-year-old, known by the nicknames "the tennis player" or "aunt". At least two apartments used by the people under investigation were then identified, presumably used as a drug dealing base.

The operational synergy of the men of the State Police of the anti-drug section of the Capitoline Flying Squad and the agents of the Spinaceto police station allowed, right from the first stages of the investigation activity, to identify the criminal association persistent in the areas of Spinaceto and Laurentino 38. At its top was “the tennis player”: he supplied the gang's pushers with the narcotic substance, then authorized the weekly delivery in doses and kept the accounts of the proceeds. In the event of the arrest of his associates, “the tennis player” also took care of their legal protection, paying the legal costs and recognizing an indemnity to the relatives of the suspects.

The association had several pushers at its disposal, real "operational arms" supplied in turn by a close collaborator of "the tennis player" who acted as a 'vector': he collected the drugs, divided into doses, at the drug dealing base and distributed them directly to the dealers.

The investigations conducted by the State Police and coordinated by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate at the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office have also allowed to quantify the volume of business produced by the illicit activity - equal to a quantity of 2/3 Kg of cocaine per month – and to bring back to the group the possession of a firearm to assert their territorial hegemony. Cutting material and tools for weighing and packaging the drug were also found in the 'storage' bases.