Messina, Forza d'Agrò criminal gang stopped

Messina, Forza d'Agrò criminal gang stopped

During the night, the Carabinieri of the Provincial Command of Messina executed a precautionary custody order issued - at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Messina – by the GIP at the local Court, against 6 Guests for which, in the current phase of the proceedings, serious indications of guilt have emerged for the crimes – for various reasons – of damage followed by fire, persecutory acts, attempted extortion, dealing and detention for the purpose of dealing drugs.  

The proceeding is in the preliminary investigation phase and the principle of not guilty applies to the suspects until the final sentence, pursuant to art. 27 of the Constitution. 

The investigative activity was started from the Operational Rate of the Taormina Company to following the fire of the car of the Commander of the Carabinieri Station of Forza d'Agrò, occurred on the night of March 31, 2021. The fire caused the complete destruction of the car owned by the non-commissioned officer while it was parked on the public road, overlooking the entrance to the Forza D'Agrò Carabinieri barracks. 

In particular, viewing the video surveillance images immediately made it possible to establish  without a doubt the malicious origin of the fire at the hands of an individual, with a distorted face, who had started the fire and immediately fled. The reconstruction of the escape route taken by the perpetrator had made it possible to immediately identify the house where the criminal had abandoned the clothes and mask used to carry out the criminal act and to place them under seizure for subsequent laboratory analysis , as well as to collect highly suggestive statements from a witness who had noticed the criminal fleeing.  

The subsequent investigative investigations, also corroborated by technical activities, made it possible to establish that the criminal action had been carried out by three local criminals who in the past had been arrested by personnel from the Forza D'Agrò station, following an investigative activity dating back to 2012 relating, among other things, to some episodes of damage by fire of several cars occurred in that center and in the surrounding municipalities.  

In the same context, the continuation of the investigative activity also made it possible to ascertain the responsibility of the suspects also in relation to: 

• to another episode of damage followed by fire, which also occurred in the Municipality of Forza D'Agrò, in December 2020, damaging the car of an architect working at the Technical Office of the Municipality of Forza d'Agrò;  
• for a attempted extortion against the owner of a well-known restaurant of Forza d'Agrò in October 2021. On that occasion the owner reported the discovery of an empty bottle, placed on the windshield of the car of one of the employees, parked near the restaurant, with a handwritten note bearing a extortion request of sixty-five thousand euros;
• precent episodes of dealing and supply of narcotic substances of various types (cocaine, crack, marijuana). In particular, several episodes have been documented in which today's suspects, after having found the narcotic in the outskirts of Messina or in the nearby province of Catania, attempted to sell some doses to known buyers in the neighboring municipalities of the Ionian area; 
• several episodes of threats, harassment and intimidation perpetrated by the suspects, between 2020 and 2021, aimed at carrying out "persecutory acts" against the then head of the Technical Office of the Municipality of Forza D'Agrò and his family members - to influence the exercise of its functions – following the failure to issue a building permit in favor of the suspects.  

At the end of the formalities, 2 of today's suspects were taken to the Messina-Gazzi prison while the remaining 4 were taken under house arrest at their respective homes.