new pact signed between the Sicilian mafia and the USA

June 16, 2020

Thirteen arrests in what is called the ‘fiefdom’ of the mafia’s red primula Matteo Messina Denaro. Arrested Francesco Domingo, considered very close to the fugitive boss since 1993, also investigated the mayor of Castellammare del Golfo (Trapani) Nicola Rizzo and two former councilors of the same town. The operation of the Trapani police has been underway since this morning and is the culmination of the investigation conducted by the Palermo District Anti-Mafia Directorate; the charges against the arrested are of mafia-type association, extortion, theft, aiding and abetting, special surveillance and more, all crimes aggravated by the mafia method. Eleven people were reported, while dozens of searches were carried out from dawn by the carabinieri with the support of naval, air and specialized units such as the Hunters of Sicily Squadron, as well as dog units for the search for weapons.

The investigations, coordinated by the chief prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi, the deputy prosecutor Paolo Guido and the deputy prosecutors Gianluca De Leo and Francesca Dessì, reads a note, “have allowed to disarticulate the mafia family of Castellammare del Golfo, which despite the disagreements Interiors, the convicted Francesco Domingo, nicknamed Tempesta, already sentenced to 19 years in prison for mafia-type association and other and returned to freedom in March 2015, firmly sees the top.

The mafia family of Castellammare del Golfo, joined to that of Alcamo after the first mafia war which saw the supremacy of the Corleonesi, had been reconstituted in 1993 “and the regency was entrusted to Gioacchino Calabrò, later, as judgedly ascertained, Domingo had inherited the regency from 1997 until 2004, continuing to exercise his power for some years also from inside the prison ». “The same sentence with which he was convicted at the time had also ascertained that Domingo had played the role of intermediary between Cosa Nostra and a criminal organization operating in Sardinia and this because Giovanni Brusca and Matteo Messina Denaro had planned some retaliatory acts against prison guards, ”investigators say.

Francesco Domingo in the past would have organized a summit “then actually happened” between Gaspare Spatuzza and the ‘red primula’ Matteo Messina Denaro. At the time both were in hiding, while Messina Denaro still is. During the meeting, “the decisions on the custody of weapons available to the mafia families of Trapani were made”. “The investigations of the carabinieri – continues the note – have shown that, even after having served the long prison sentence, since his release, Domingo had immediately summarized the role of head of the family and that he had a large group of acolytes”.

The position covered by Tempesta was recognized unanimously also by the joints of the Cosa Nostra: he was in fact interested by Francesco Virga, the top of the mafia mandate of Trapani, already arrested in the operation of the Scrigno carabinieri and today reached by a new order of precautionary custody in prison for mafia association and extortion, to force, in competition with the arrested Diego Angileri, a farmer from Castellammare di Puglia to sell a vast plot of land that led to the districts of Marsala.

The investigation also revealed the existence of a new mafia pact between the fugitive bosses of the fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro and affiliates residing in the United States. Francesco Domingo is considered by investigators to be the top authority among the Trapani mafia joints, and also recognized in the United States of America where ‘cells’ of Cosa Nostra have long been installed and developed. “There have been numerous visits, intercepted by the bugs and cameras of the carabinieri, by mafia members of the Italian-American Bonanno family from New York who updated the chief of the Castellammare mafia of the dynamics and balances of Cosa nostra overseas”.

But the American mobsters “also asked Domingo for permission to speak with other exponents of Alcamo’s mandate, pleaded the causes of acquaintances at home, as well as conveyed messages between Domingo and the associates in America.” Exactly with reference to the relationship with Cosa Nostra from the United States, Domingo met the investigators, also in the summer of 2018, also the boss of Sciacca (Agrigento) Accursio Dimino, then arrested in November last year, and subsequently his emissaries.