Francesco Pelle returned to Italy and ordered the Christmas massacre
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Francesco Pelle returned to Italy and ordered the Christmas massacreFrancesco Pelle returned to Italy and ordered the Christmas massacre
AGI – Francesco Pelle, 44, returned from Portugal with a plane that took him to the Rome airport of Ciampino until a few months ago. fugitive from the ‘Ndranghetto. According to Italian justice, he is the instigator of the Christmas massacre in which Maria Strangio, wife of the boss Giovanni Luca Nirta, the real target of the homicidal commando, died. The attack, 8 months later, had an even more tragic sequel with the massacre of Duisburg, Germany, in which 6 people believed to be close to the Pelle-Vottari clan died. It was the response of the enemy clan to the ambush of December 25, 2006, one of the bloody chapters of the feud in San Luca (Reggio Calabria) between the Vottari-Pelle-Romeo and Strangio-Nirta clans. A war that began on 10 February 1991 following a Carnival joke, when a group of young people linked to the Strangio-Nirta clan threw eggs towards a recreational club run by one of the Pelle, called “Gambazza”, also dirtying the car. of a Vottari. A disgrace, according to the rules of the ‘ndrine, to be washed with blood. And blood has been shed since that day. Leather was brought back to Italy by the men of the International Police Cooperation Service (SCIP) of the central direction of the Criminal Police, led by the Prefect Vittorio Rizzi

The arrest in Lisbon
The boss of San Luca (RC) was arrested in Lisbon on March 29 last, on the basis of a European arrest warrant, executed by the National Antiterrorism Unit of the Portuguese Judiciary Police, as part of an operation made possible by the cooperation provided by the Operational Department of the provincial command of Reggio Calabria and by the Carabinieri Group of Locri, under the aegis of the Dda of Reggio Calabria. The arrest and return to Italy of the fugitive, the investigators commented, represents an important result of the I-Can (Interpol Cooperation Against ‘Ndrangheta) project against the’ Ndrangheta, promoted by Italy together with Interpol, which involves State Police, Arma of the Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza and the police forces of 11 other countries in the world: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Uruguay, USA.

Pelle, known as “Ciccio Pakistan”, was included in the list of the 30 most dangerous wanted men in Italy. Traces of him had been lost on July 19, 2019, shortly before the Supreme Court rejected his appeal, definitively condemning him to life imprisonment as the instigator of the “Christmas massacre”. The Carabinieri found him in a Lisbon clinic where he was hospitalized because he was positive for Covid.

The Christmas massacre was the response to the attempted murder of Francesco Pelle, which took place on 31 July 2006 when Ciccio Pakistan was wounded in the back and definitively lost the use of his legs. The wheelchair in which he is forced to live has not prevented him from becoming a boss, organizing the retaliation against the Nirta-Strangio clan and, above all, from running away twice.

The first was interrupted in 2008 by a blitz of the Ros of Reggio Calabria. While everyone was chasing him, “Ciccio Pakistan” was hospitalized under a false name in Pavia, in the neuro-rehabilitation department of the Maugeri Foundation Clinic. Pelle was treated at the expense of the NHS and from his room in the hospital he communicated via Skype with the men of the clan left free after the Fehida operation, coordinated by Nicola Gratteri, now chief prosecutor of Catanzaro, then serving in Reggio Calabria.

Escape ended in Portugal
In September 2017 Pelle had returned free due to the expiry of the terms of the trial phase of the gangs of San Luca. His conviction had been canceled and postponed by the Supreme Court. For two years he had been subjected to the obligation of residence in Milan pending the final sentence, but when the Supreme Court confirmed the life imprisonment, Ciccio Pakistan, he was no longer there. Again fugitive despite the serious handicap. This time the escape lasted less than two years and ended abroad, in Portugal, where, according to the Carabinieri, Pelle would have enjoyed a safety net that allowed him not only to leave the country undisturbed, but also to seek treatment in a clinic after discovering that you are positive for coronavirus.

The I-Can project, under the aegis of Interpol, has facilitated international cooperation between the police forces of different states, allowing today the capture abroad of 20 fugitives of ‘Ndrangheta, among which, in addition to that of Pelle, the arrests of Giuseppe Romeo, Vincenzo Pasquino, Rocco Morabito, quest last second only to Matteo Messina Denaro, one of the most dangerous fugitives included in the wanted list. Arrests which, according to investigators, confirm the ramification of Italian crime and its capacity for pervasion and international diffusion.

The Duisburg massacre was the spy of the expansion of the Calabrian mafia abroad, making known to the world the terrifying power of the ‘ndrine. In the night between 14 and 15 August 2007, in the small town of western Germany, Tommaso Venturi, 18 years old, died; Francesco and Marco Pergola 22 and 20 years old; Francesco Giorgi, 17 years old; Marco Marmo, 25, and Sebastiano Strangio, 39. They were killed with machine gun shots in front of the restaurant-pizzeria ‘Da Bruno’ owned by the Strangio family, originally from San Luca. And the German giant also trembled.