Mafia association, drug trafficking, weapons and extortion: 121 sentences for the Strisciuglio clan
Penalties ranging from 30 years to one year and six months' imprisonment for the defendants, including seven bosses of the criminal group

Editorial board
January 27, 2023 6:22 pm

There are 121 sentences inflicted by the investigating judge of the Court of Bari Antonella Cafagna against as many alleged leaders and affiliates of the Strisciuglio clan. The sentences imposed, as reported by Ansa, range from 30 years to one year and six months in prison. Another 14 people were acquitted.

The charges against the defendants were of mafia association, trafficking and possession of drugs and weapons, extortion of traders, injuries and a brawl that took place in January 2016 in the Bari prison, which involved 41 inmates armed with razor blades and box cutters and in which they reported some prison officers were also injured.

Prosecutors Iolanda Daniela Chimienti and Marco D'Agostino - reports the agency - at the end of the indictment, in the bunker room of the Court of Bitonto had asked for the sentence for the 135 defendants who had chosen the abbreviated procedure (another 15 were postponed to trial) asking for sentences of between 20 years and 22 months in prison.

A sentence of thirty years, the highest, was imposed on Giuseppe Misceo, known as 'Peppino the Ghost', while the alleged bosses Vito Valentino, Lorenzo Caldarola, Alessandro Ruta, Saverio Faccilongo, Vito Catacchio and Giacomo Campanale, among others, were sentenced to twenty years.

The trial follows the Vortice Maestrale investigation, conducted by the police and carabinieri, which had reconstructed, also through the statements of 21 collaborators of justice, the hierarchy and illegal activities of the clan since 2015,

The investigation by the police and carabinieri, called "Vortice maestrale", has reconstructed - also thanks to the declarations of 21 collaborators of justice - the hierarchy and illicit activities of the clan, since 2015, for the control of the territory in the Freedom districts of Bari, the historical stronghold of the mafia group, San Paolo, San Pio-Enziteto, Santo Spirito and San Girolamo and in the municipalities of Palo del Colle and Conversano. The defendants were sentenced to compensate the civil parties: the Libera association and the Municipality of Bari.

https://www.baritoday.it/cronaca/ma...iuglio-operazione-vortice-maestrale.html