Mafia: Investigation into €12 million money laundering, 11 security measures annulled

All 11 precautionary measures requested by the Palermo Public Prosecutor’s Office against entrepreneurs and mafiosi involved in an investigation on a suspected €12 million money laundering scheme carried out by Salemi bosses close to Matteo Messina Denaro on behalf of Palermo clans have been annulled. The Court of Review, to which the defendants turned, heavily downsized the decision of the judge for preliminary investigations.

Main protagonists of the operation Salvatore Angelo, an entrepreneur already convicted for managing investments in renewable energies of the former fugitive of Castelvetrano and his son Andrea. According to the investigators, to move the money of the Palermo mafia clans they would have exploited the international Swift circuit, a method used to transfer money abroad making it untraceable. The money laundering operations hypothesized by the carabinieri were two. Money entrusted by the Palermo mafiosi to the “cousins” of Salemi who, thanks to consultants and intermediaries capable of managing Swift, would have carried out their designs.

The public prosecutor alleged that capomafia Michele Micalizzi had turned to the two Angelos to transfer the dirty money of the mafia clan. The financial mind of the plan would have been Giuseppe Burrafato who could count on complacent entrepreneurs (some foreigners) and “ambiguous figures in the sector,” as described by the judge. In 2019, 12 million mafia money would have been transferred from the account of Deutsche Bank to an HSBC branch. Investigators intercepted the Swift report file, a summary of the necessary elements to identify the details of the transaction.

The organization also tried to acquire, reinvesting dirty money, 12 Coop Sicilia stores (but the deal fell through), unsuccessfully attempting to meet, to seek his support, the senator of Italia Viva Davide Faraone; laundering out-of-circulation lire on behalf of the ‘ndrangheta and cleaning the money of Calogero John Luppino, the king of underground online betting, another faithful follower of the former fugitive.