In Milan there is a “mafia context” and it is present “nothing more and nothing less than Calabria”: this is how the DDA prosecutors, Alessandra Cerreti and Rosario Ferracane, began their indictment of the maxi trial that arose from Hydra’s investigation into the alleged “alliance” between Cosa Nostra affiliates, the ‘Ndrangheta and the Camorra in Lombardy to do business and on the so-called “Lombard mafia system”.
The trial is taking place behind closed doors in a bunker courtroom and prosecutors have begun summary trials for nearly 80 defendants out of a total of 146 defendants. Another 59 people have opted for regular procedures and are in preliminary hearings, while the rest are working to reach plea deals. The discussion of the prosecutor’s representatives, with a reconstruction of the investigation and evidence from various positions, will end with a request for punishment at tomorrow’s hearing. Instead, the defense will speak on November 17 and 28, days when preliminary hearings will also resume, again in front of preliminary hearing judge Emanuele Mancini.
Among those opting for the abbreviated procedure are Giuseppe Fidanzati, son of Cosa Nostra boss Gaetano Fidanzati, and Bernardo, Domenico and Michele Pace, who will be part of the Trapani provincial mandate led by Paolo Aurelio Errante Parrino, a relative of Matteo Messina Denaro. However, Parrino was undergoing a preliminary hearing and chose a regular trial.
For this investigation, among others, prosecutor Marcello Viola and prosecutor Cerreti have had their security strengthened in recent months due to threats they have received. Meanwhile, in the latest hearing the judge has accepted the DDA’s request to obtain in the trial six interrogation reports, plus other supporting documents, of William Alfonso Cerbo, known as “Scarface”, who recently repented. Cerbo confirmed the alleged allegations to prosecutors in six interviews, which took place between September and October, also providing details about his role as “an economic collector in Milan of the Mazzei clan in Catania”.
In addition to deals in various sectors worth tens of millions of euros – from drug trafficking, usury, debt collection, extortion, to investments with illegal infiltration in legal companies, clinics and construction – in Cerbo’s interrogation (many parts omitted) there was talk of inter-clan conflicts, murders, such as the case of white lupara involving Catania boss Gaetano Cantarella, and alleged moles within the police.
