The trial began in Naples on Friday.
Dubbed the narco trial of the century in Italy, the court will hear over the next few weeks how drugs boss Raffaele Imperiale controlled a massive money- laundering and cocaine business from the Emirates.
It will detail how he played a key role in forming Europe’s super-cartel along with the Kinahan Cartel, Dutch-Moroccan criminals and a Balkan-based mob called, the Dino and Tito Cartel.
Imperiale is accused of having imported at least seven tons of cocaine into Europe from 2017 to 2021 from his base in Dubai.
Raffaele Imperiale
Raffaele Imperiale
As well as the drug shipments, Italian law officials also allege Imperiale played a leading role in operating a transnational money-laundering operation.
Judge Maria Luisa Miranda will hear how Imperiale’s group laundered and sent money abroad using the Hawala system.
It is claimed that the laundered cash was used to buy gold between Naples and Vicenza, which was then sent onto Holland.
According to Italian magistrates, Imperiale laundered enormous of “profits generated by drug trafficking, through a corporate network.”
Imperiale is accused of buying shipments of cocaine from the notorious Clan del Golfo which were then hidden inside containers and brought into European seaports.
Colombia’s Clan del Golfo are seen as the biggest single distributors of cocaine in the world.
They are widely reported to have been the suppliers of the €157 million cocaine haul which was seized from the MV Matthew off the coast of Cork.
Italian prosecutors are claiming Imperiale forged alliances with key European drug gangs, including the Kinahan Cartel and the Netherlands’ Moroccan mafia, to work together.
They have claimed Imperiale’s allies include “South American and European drug traffickers of the highest level: both Colombians from the infamous paramilitary formations known as Clan del Golfo, and Dutch of Moroccan origin who in the meantime established themselves on the scene among the main criminal groups in the control of cocaine trafficking from South America in the ports of Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Antwerp (Belgium), both Irish”.
Unlike Mafia trials in the past where bosses stuck to the code of ‘Omerta’, Imperiale has already agreed to give evidence in the case.
And he is not alone.
Imperiale’s right-hand man, Bruno Carbone, has also chosen to become a ‘collaborator of justice’ and give evidence.
Carbone had been based in Dubai but fled to Syria after Imperiale was arrested.
Bizarrely, he tried to strike a deal with a Syrian Islamist group – the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militia – for protection but they double-crossed him and took him hostage.
They ultimately decided to hand him over to the Italian authorities.
According to reports, once Carbone arrived in Italy, he bent down to kiss the ground and agreed to give evidence.
Imperiale’s money man, Corrado Genovese, and accountant, Daniele Ursini, will also be brought before the court.
Genovese has given a statement explaining how the entire drug business was able to operate thanks to so-called “exchangemen”.
These exchangemen circulate the money raised through criminal activities and make it available to anyone who needs it across the world.
Most of the exchangemen use the Hawala system, a traditional honour-based transfer system used for generations in the Middle East. Genovese has claimed this ‘parallel finance’ system enabled the super-cartel to bypass law enforcement.
Next week, the trial will hear how Europol hacked into encrypted phone networks and built up a detailed diary one of the most powerful criminal organisations.
The court will hear how Imperiale and his associates provided an enormous amount of material – texts, photos, videos – which ended up in the hands of magistrates.
https://www.sundayworld.com/crime/i...ahan-cartels-uae-hideout/a688201795.html
