INVESTIGATION
03 marzo 2024 alle 13:40
Mafia infiltration, Sardinia increasingly at risk

In Assemini, the ghost headquarters of a company from which the Naples Prosecutor Gratteri had 55 million euros seized

The colors of the building are anonymous, like that four-storey building erected during the brick boom period on the outskirts of what was once the Las Vegas of Campidano. Number 78 is Corso Asia, at the crossroads between Assemini and Macchiareddu, between the industrial enclave and the city of punishment, the Uta prison. The late afternoon light is faint in this air corridor which at least every half hour pierces the eardrums of those poor unfortunates who live on the axis with runway 14 of Elmas airport.

Silent bells

The bells are there, some, however, have always been silent. The last fingerprints imprinted on the button are those of the reporter who dared to break into the quiet calm of that apartment where the secrets of one of the most significant judicial seizures against companies under investigation for collusion with the Camorra ever carried out in Sardinia are hidden. The name of the company is the personal-fiscal history of a team whose pedigree is not the stuff of catechism. There is the birth name, Entei SpA, there is the corporate evolution summarized: “Etica SpA”. Behind the ethical-Aristotelian call to the common good, however, there is nothing philosophical. It is the anagram translation of “Environmental Technologies International SpA (Etica SpA). One name, a whole program: even international environmental technologies.

Close encounter

When you try the close encounter card you expect that after the first press on the bell they will answer you with a universal slang, but nothing. Not even the politeness of a “good morning, sorry we're busy”. Absolute silence behind that little gate that protects a tax office that has been deserted for some time. After all, the gentlemen of "Ethics" really have something to do these days, after the black "soul" of the Camorra and organized crime, that state terror called Nicola Gratteri, Attorney General of Naples, asked and obtained the seizure of all the financial and economic assets of this company with the tax residence close to the Sa Nuscedda stream, the mouth towards Santa Gilla, in the land of Assemini.

55 million seized

Not a seizure like many others, but the beauty of 55 million euros. An avalanche of money ended up in the state safe beforehand, complete with a commissioner, until the judicial process was completed. The prevention measure written by the Court of Santa Maria Capua Vetere on 16 January is a sort of criminal record of sixty pages, with as many hypothetical charges and crimes that have already been on trial for some time. The accusation is substantiated in a myriad of disputed and recalled facts. The Judges' order is explicit: «the preventative seizure is ordered to the detriment of D'Amico Antonio and his family unit of all company shares and corporate assets in their availability». At stake are direct and indirect relationships with the most powerful clan in Campania, the Casalesi. In the seizure order the reference to "excellent" names of the most influential clan bosses is recurrent, starting from the number one: Michele and Pasquale Zagaria, both guests of the 41 bis of Sassari. The context is explicit: a potential criminal wedged between white-collar workers and laborers capable of influencing contracts and works with a glance in every public-private ravine where the Camorra has insinuated itself in Campania, but not only. The story, as often happens in these environments, is all waste and reclamation, landfills and sewage sludge which suddenly become gold for the collateral and direct coffers of organized crime, according to what the seizure order tells us. The corporate structure is complex, but the fiscal heart of the company is right in Corso Asia in Assemini. The Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate scores its big coup precisely in the Sardinian enclave of this group, which over the years has decentralized powers, money and assets in favor of its direct family members. For the seizure against "Etica", the joint-stock company based in the metropolitan city of Cagliari, however, the Judges refer directly to him, the founder, Antonio D'Amico: «seizure of the entire share capital and complex of capital goods and any other goods intended for business activity recorded in the specific mandatory accounting records constituting the company compendium, as well as the deposits and bank accounts of Environmental Technologies International, registered office in Assemini Corso Asia 78, having as its corporate purpose " construction of public works for the transport of fluids". The questions are an obligatory step: why does a company of this importance have its registered office in the extreme outskirts of Assemini, a few kilometers from the Uta prison, already full of Camorra members on the move? Is there a correlation? Or otherwise, why did Antonio D'Amico relocate the legal affairs of Ethics to this anonymous Sardinian enclave? There is no answer to all this in the judicial documents, but it is clear that many documents are still kept under lock and key. One piece of data, however, emerges from the customer portfolio of this company subjected to seizure: on the company website the names are those you would never expect.

High-sounding references

In the “ Reference ” chapter they write: our references are the most evident testimony to our experience, competence and seriousness. And then down a mass of high-sounding names, from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, complete with the banner of Palazzo Chigi, to the Sardinian Abbanoa, from the Pugliese aqueduct, the one that sent sewage sludge from all of Puglia to Sardinia, to the neighboring Lucano aqueduct , from the Municipality of Caltanissetta to that of Perugia, from the Campania Region to the Calabria Region. It is not known in what capacity Abbanoa and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers appear in this parterre, but it is certainly a chapter that needs to be clarified, without wasting too much time.

Sardinia «vulnerable»

This affair is the latest in chronological order which opens up disturbing scenarios regarding potential risky infiltrations in Sardinia. The latest six-monthly report from the Anti-Mafia completely overturns the scenario of the past, that of an impregnable Sardinia. The passage is explicit as never before: «In Sardinia, over time, projections of the so-called traditional mafias dedicated to investments aimed at laundering and reinvesting the proceeds illicitly accumulated in other Regions have been found. This assumption is also confirmed by the Attorney General of the Republic of Cagliari during his speech at the inauguration of the 2023 judicial year, according to which the Sardinia Region "appears vulnerable to the penetration of mafia organizations, in particular, from Campania and Calabria. The latter, moreover, appear to be strongly interested in the laundering of money of illicit origin and in the re-use of illicit capital, phenomena facilitated by the great investment opportunities that Sardinia offers in the tourism and commercial sector". In other words: sending another 100 mafia bosses to the Sardinian "Cayenne", to the Uta prison, would be a lethal blow for the island, yet another.