Palermo, the State Police dismantles a criminal association dedicated to the sale of crack
Palermo, the State Police dismantles a criminal association dedicated to the sale of crack
Palermo, the State Police dismantles a criminal association dedicated to the sale of crack
The Palermo State Police, following an investigative activity coordinated by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate at the Palermo Public Prosecutor's Office, dismantled a criminal organization operating in Sperone and dedicated to the retail sale of doses of crack.
Since the first light of dawn, a precautionary custody order has been executed against 18 people, 17 of whom will have to answer for the crime of criminal association for the purpose of drug dealing and one for the crime of drug dealing.
The investigations of the police officers of the State Police Station "Brancaccio" who made use of sophisticated technologies and interception activities, They documented thousands of incidents of crack dealing, between 2020 and 2022, located in the garages of a popular condominium area, with a large population density, characterised by the presence of grates and gates that limit access from external streets and from which the name “ai cancelli” (at the gates) for the entire area derives.
This limitation, combined with the circumspection adopted by the associates and the pushers and the security provided by "lookouts" on the upper floors and by "patrols" passing through the surrounding areas, made the investigations of the police particularly difficult, who, however, managed to "penetrate" the impenetrability of this "fortress".
Video cameras were then placed in this part of the south-eastern outskirts of the capital, one of the largest drug dealing areas in the whole of Sicily, and numerous sales were documented live, including to buyers from municipalities in the Palermo area and other provinces.
The results of the investigations, as well as the individual responsibilities of the suspects, have identified all the symptomatic signs of the operation of a well-tested and structured organization:
the division of tasks, the establishment of rigid “work shifts” – 8am and 18pm – the use of the same place of dealing, the automation of drug dealing practices, the division of proceeds between associates, the management of a common fund.
It is estimated that, approximately, from 2020 to 2022, the association obtained from drug dealing in the gates area, approximately 50.000,00 euros per month.
The organization was based on the fruitful collaboration of two family groups that acted in full agreement for the common profit and returned to do so, in the name of a renewed "criminal peace", even after some misunderstandings that had caused a phase of tension, resulting in the beating of a member of one of the two families.
Near one of the condominium garages, considered the epicenter of drug dealing and a daily transit point for dozens of motorists/buyers who stopped for a few seconds to take away some crack, the associates had also set up an illicit soft drink shop, at the same time a lucrative sideline and diversion that could have justified the presence of many customers who had actually come to that part of Sperone, not for soft drinks but for drugs.
During the operation, which lasted approximately two years, the State Police made numerous arrests and seizures of crack, while at the same time obtaining confirmation of the individual sales through hearings and confessions of the buyers - users, stopped at a safe distance from the places of dealing.
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