Mantua: Shepherd arrested for aggravated extortion and exploitation, he rationed daily food supplies to three employees with a daily budget of less than 2 euros each

“I'm from Camporeale, near Corleone”. With this phrase, full of allusive meanings to the super boss of Corleone, he would have introduced himself to the agricultural entrepreneurs of the lower Mantua area (between San Benedetto Po, Suzzara and Motteggiana), invading alfalfa fields with thousands of sheep from his flocks, immediately instilling a sort of veiled intimidation in his victims. According to the accusatory hypothesis accepted by the Preliminary Investigation Judge, the'man, a 49 year old shepherd native of Camporeale (PA) and resident in Brescello (RE), With the help of a trusted collaborator of Romanian origin, he would have destroyed the crops with these raids, fed his sheep and made undisturbed profits, letting the cattle graze for several days at no cost, also causing the spread of parasitic and bacterial loads on the land "with consequent risk of telluric infections and endoparasitosis", as certified by the ATS of Mantua.

The extortions aggravated by the use of violence and threats against several local farmers would also have created, for years, a climate of fear and subjugation to which the landowners themselves were subjected. Until, from February 2023 to today, the Carabinieri of the Operational Section of the Mantua Company they have started a thorough investigation, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Mantua, receiving the testimonies of the victims who felt protected by the military of the Carabinieri who therefore shed light on the unbearable situation.

The wiretaps then defined the circumstantial framework, also revealing a very serious condition of illicit exploitation of workers employed by the Sicilian shepherd. Three employees, formally employed, were allegedly subjected to degrading working conditions, characterized by dilapidated housing conditions, with repeated failure to pay wages, with the subjection to exhausting working hours – from dawn to dusk – without any rest period, with the employer taking advantage of their state of need deriving from the conditions of economic poverty and (in one case) irregularity of the national territory.

In this unlikely (but real) picture, the Sicilian shepherd would have also rationed the daily food supplies to the three employees, choosing quality and quantity without any possibility of appeal, with a daily budget that he himself calculated to be strictly less than 2 euros for each worker (leaving some of them in fact without meals for several whole days), forcing them to live in a caravan without the most basic hygiene and safety conditions, without heating or running water, in a state that the Preliminary Investigation Judge of the Court of Mantua, in the precautionary custody order he issued at the conclusion of the investigation, was quick to define as "appalling".

Thus, the Carabinieri of the Mantua Company, assisted by the military of the Provincial Commands of Reggio Emilia and Vercelli, with the support of the Carabinieri Forestale Groups of Mantua and Modena-Reggio Emilia, of the Carabinieri Labor Inspectorate Unit of Mantua, of the Carabinieri Dog Units of Orio al Serio (BG) and Bologna, as well as a helicopter of the 13th Carabinieri Helicopter Unit of Forlì-Cesena, they executed the order of custody in prison against the pastor, investigated, in the accusatory hypothesis, for multiple aggravated extortion in competition and exploitation of labor.

In the same operation The Carabinieri placed the real estate and movable assets (the flocks in particular) under preventive seizure, for subsequent confiscation, against the man, and the homes of four further individuals, aged between 31 and 37, were searched., all orbiting between the territories of the lower Reggio Emilia area, the lower Mantua area and Vercelli, investigated by the Public Prosecutor's Office, within the scope of the same criminal proceedings, for trafficking and illicit possession of weapons of suspected stolen origin, as emerged from the telephone interceptions conducted with the 49-year-old. Sicilian Shepherd Arrested, after the ritual formalities, he was held in the Mantua prison, available to the Judicial Authority.

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