Agrigento, huge police seizure of the Maira brothers, convicted of mafia charges by judge Livatino

Agrigento, the State Police of Agrigento carried out asset seizures against the MAIRA brothers, aged 71 and 65 respectively.

The State Police of Agrigento carried out asset seizures against the Maira brothers, Antonio and Giuseppe, from Canicattino, for a value of approximately 400 thousand euros.

Properties located in Canicattì and Caltanissetta were seized (5 apartments, with related appurtenances, and 3 warehouses) and bank deposits in the name of them and their family members (19 banking/financial relationships), as well as an Audi Q3 car.

The property investigations arise from the arrest order of a crime suspect issued by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Agrigento and carried out against the Mairas by the policemen of the Agrigento Flying Squad and the Carabinieri Company of Canicattì in December 2019.

Following investigations, supported by statements from some victims, it emerged that the two brothers had been responsible for usurious activities towards small entrepreneurs in the Canicatt area in difficulty, from whom they asked for interest rates amounting to 120% per annum, in exchange for of the sums of money lent.

For these crimes the brothers have already been sentenced with summary judgment, respectively 4 years of imprisonment Antonio Maira and 5 years of imprisonment Giuseppe Maira.

But already in the years 2004 - 2009 both were responsible for similar crimes for which they were sent to trial, it is no coincidence that the operation was called "Noose".

Once the investigations were completed, which ended with the arrests, a specific unit was set up in the Anti-Crime Division of the Police Headquarters, and the police analyzed the financial flows of the two suspects since the early 2000s, detecting clear inequalities between the small sums of money of legitimate origin and real estate and securities investments, identifying homes and shops between Canicattì and Caltanissetta, which were the reuse of illicit capital, as well as banking relationships in various credit institutions.

The results of the investigations were then communicated by the Police Commissioner of Agrigento, the proposing body within the scope of his specific prerogatives, to the Court of Palermo -Prevention Measures Section – who shared the investigative theses by ordering the seizures aimed at confiscation.

The imposition of the prevention measure of Special Surveillance with obligation to stay in the municipality of residence was also requested against them, in relation to which the decision is expected from the Court on 26.06.2021, the date set to allow the interested parties to present their defense theses to the financial prevention measures already arranged and the personal ones to be arranged.

Maira Antonio was a leading figure in the criminal panorama of the Agrigento province, a circumstance which clearly facilitated the partnership with her brother Giuseppe in the collection of debts from their victims, for fear of serious retaliation.

Gangster before its time, he had in fact already served in the '80s in the "Stidda", a clan notoriously opposed to "Cosa Nostra", being able to have a large and dangerous cell in Canicattì, of which he was a member.

On behalf of his "Paracco", that is "Umbrella", so called in jargon by the "Stiddari" the territorial fringe, he dealt with drug trafficking and robberies, he was part of a commando which in November 1983 carried out a robbery in a armory of Favara, where several weapons were stolen, also from another group of robbers who in the same period stole 27 million lire during a robbery carried out at a bank in Palma di Montechiaro, after having immobilized the security guard and having stolen his gun.

One of the weapons stolen from the armory and that of the security guard were later found on 6.04.1984 by the police during a search at his home, which is why he was arrested.

For the aforementioned crimes, drug trafficking in an associative context and weapons, the aforementioned was sentenced by the Court of Agrigento in 1986 to a prison sentence of 22 years and 6 months, later reduced on appeal to 17 years and 6 months of imprisonment.

He was the one who received the heaviest sentence from "Paracco", which he served until 2004.

Supporting the accusation was the then young Public Prosecutor Rosario LIVATINO, proclaimed Blessed last Sunday, who a few years later, on 21 September 1990, was killed at the hands of "Stiddari", according to the various collaborators of justice precisely because he had inflicted heavy sentences on affiliates of the "Stidda", including Maira Antonio.

In 1997 the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Palermo proclaimed his role in the group of "Stiddari”, as already outlined in the 1996 sentence of the Court of Assizes of Agrigento “ALLETTO Croce +77”, sentencing him to 5 years of imprisonment for the crime referred to in the art. 416 bis.

Precisely because of this persistent dedication to crime, the Court of Palermo established Maira Antonio as a social danger dating back to the 80s, i.e. when she began to commit particularly serious crimes.

The fact that in this period in which there was the beatification of Judge Livatino the asset seizure of a person who was affiliated with the "Stidda" has a high symbolic value, especially if it concerns precisely that affiliate in relation to the which the then Public Prosecutor obtained that the harshest sentence be imposed, a sentence which together with those of the other acolytes decreed his barbaric killing.