Brindisi, another hard blow to the SCU from the State Police coordinated by the DDA of Lecce

The State Police of Brindisi, last night, on behalf of the Lecce District Anti-Mafia Directorate, executed a custody order in prison issued by the GIP at the Court of Lecce, against 2 individuals deemed responsible for the crime of attempted extortion, aggravated by mafia methods, against a local entrepreneur.

The precautionary measure carried out represents the epilogue of further investigative investigations that, with the coordination of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Lecce, the Flying Squad of the Brindisi Police Headquarters and the SISCO of Lecce, have carried out following the arrests that took place last October 11th against 4 individuals, 3 of whom are well-known members of the “mesagnesi clan”, an association linked to the Sacra Corona Unita, who had approached a local entrepreneur making an extortionate request, under penalty of being unable to continue their business activity in the territory subject to their control.

In order to ascertain the facts, the cooperation of the entrepreneur was of fundamental importance. Despite the criminal nature of the individuals who had intimidated him, he had turned to the State Police investigators and filed a formal complaint.

The elements provided by the same, appropriately supported by observation services, including through the use of cameras, as well as through telephone interception activities, had allowed to crystallize the occurrence of three meetings, at the intermediary's country house, during which the suspects had represented to the entrepreneur that in order to continue carrying out his work activity he would have to pay the sum of two hundred thousand euros as well as hire a person indicated by them, since they too "had to be well". On the day set for the delivery of a first tranche of the sum of money, equal to twenty thousand euros, in light of the failure of the entrepreneur to show up for the meeting at the intermediary's home, the suspects, unknowingly monitored remotely by the State Police investigators, had gone to the construction site where the entrepreneur was carrying out his work activity, making several transits, with short stops, on board a car with a clearly intimidating attitude.

In order to strengthen the evidentiary framework against those arrested today, already extensively involved in the phases of approaching the entrepreneur and in subsequent meetings, of fundamental importance were the interception activities thanks to which it would have been possible to ascertain their awareness regarding the extortion request explicitly advanced to the entrepreneur by the four individuals already arrested last October 11th.

The investigative path traced by the State Police in a further crime report, allowed the DDA of Lecce to obtain the precautionary measures in prison carried out today.