Companies serving the mafia, assets worth 3 million seized in Biancavilla and Adrano

Last Updated: May 13, 2024

«Aziende al servizio dei clan», sequestrati beni per 3 milioni a Biancavilla e Adrano

Assets worth over three million euros have been seized by the Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit of the provincial command of Catania from the entrepreneur Carmelo Militello, 51 years old, believed to be connected to the mafia association Tomasello-Mazzaglia-Toscano, active in the territories of Adrano and Biancavilla and linked to the Santapaola-Ercolano family. A measure issued by the Prevention Measures section of the Etnean Court at the request of the local District Attorney’s Office on asset investigations carried out by military personnel of the Economic Crime section of the Police between 2016 and 2022. The companies affected by the seizure aimed at confiscation are owned by Militello’s two children, Miriana and Nicolò. They are M.M. Logistic in Adrano and M.N. Trasporti Srl in Biancavilla. Seals have also been placed on the family home, a villa in Santa Maria di Licodia with a swimming pool.

According to the accusation, the two companies would have been “under the control of mafia organizations, not leaving room for competition by virtue of an agreement signed between the criminal leaders of the two Etnean municipalities.” According to several collaborators of justice, “Militello’s figure would have been chosen and imposed both by the leaders of the mafia association of Biancavilla, first by the brothers Vito and Pippo Amoroso with the approval of Alfio Ambrogio Monforte, and then by Giuseppe Mancari, as well as by the clan Santangelo-Scalisi of Adrano.” According to the Prosecutor, the suspect would have “had the role of frontman and was entrusted with the management of the so-called ‘agency of Biancavilla, entrusted with the loading of goods, especially food products, whose income would have mostly gone to the clan.” In essence, the accusation contests, “the agency would have had a role of intermediation between the owners of the warehouses collecting the products processed in the fields and the truck drivers, demanding sums of money from both based on the weight of the goods to be transported.” A conduct that, according to the Catania Dda, “seems to constitute extortion, mandatory in order to work in that territory, notoriously rich in citrus companies, that disrupted the market without the possibility of choosing alternative services, and was fueled by the intimidating force of the mafia families.”