GOTHA PROCESS
'Ndrangheta in Reggio, the repentant Cortese: "Romeo and De Stefano belonged to a higher power"
February 26, 2021
The statements of the collaborator of justice in the context of the Gotha trial

«When I left the prison, Paolo Romeo passed into my cell. Romeo had arrived in Tolmezzo a few months earlier. I knew who he was and he knew my caliber and my criminal role. Pietro Labate told me that I had to respect Paolo Romeo and Giorgio De Stefano ». To say it was the collaborator of justice Maurizio Cortese who for the first time deposed in a public hearing. He did so this morning, connected by videoconference with the bunker hall of Reggio Calabria, in the hearing of the "Gotha" trial which is being celebrated with the
ordinary rite and which sees, as the main defendant, the lawyer and former parliamentarian of the PSdi Paolo Romeo, considered the thinking head of the 'Ndrangheta of Reggio.

Romeo and the lawyer Giorgio De Stefano, according to the former boss, "were not part of the 'Ndrangheta" old model ".
Rather, he added, they were part" of a system of power superior to that of the traditional' Ndrangheta ".

After Cortese, the collaborator Maurizio De Carlo , former accountant of the De Stefano clan, was heard talking about politics and, referring to Nino Fiume, now a collaborator of justice but until 2002 killer of the "arcoti", said: "He made a strong election campaign for the former president of the Calabria region Giuseppe Scopelliti. I know Antonio Caridi, he too was supported by the De Stefano family. He was sponsored by the De Stefano clan and above all by Franco Chirico ".