Political-mafia electoral exchange, extortion, possession of weapons and narcotics, introduction into prison of telephone devices, with which they managed their affairs from prison: these are some of the charges brought against 12 people seriously suspected of being organizers and affiliates of the "Nardo" Clan " operating in the northern area of the province of Syracuse and considered an offshoot of the Cosa Nostra family from Catania "Santapaola Ercolano".
Ten of them ended up in prison and two under house arrest, in execution of an order issued by the investigating judge of the Court of Catania, at the request of the Anti-Mafia District Prosecutor's Office and carried out by the Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit of the Provincial Command of Syracuse, making use of the resulting intimidation force from the association bond, the arrested people, according to what emerged from the investigation, had managed to acquire, directly and indirectly, the management or in any case the control of numerous economic and entrepreneurial activities, mainly in the agro-pastoral sector, in the northern area of the province Syracuse.
The crime of political-mafia electoral exchange is also alleged against a mayoral candidate in the last local elections in 2022 who allegedly accepted the promise of obtaining votes in exchange for money and a commitment to work to facilitate the release of the son of an affiliate.
The recipients of the provision would have "managed to acquire, directly and indirectly, the management or in any case the control of numerous economic and entrepreneurial activities, mainly in the agro-pastoral sector, in the northern area of the Syracuse province".
According to the investigators, the members of the clan would have threatened "even from inside the penal institutions, illicitly using mobile phones, anyone who had turned to the police to report an extortion or a threat suffered, hiding weapons with high offensive potential, selling narcotics such as cocaine and marijuana, managing a thriving plantation made up of 731 plants".
Numerous episodes of extortion committed by the suspects have been reconstructed who "through threats and using the force of intimidation, forced various agricultural entrepreneurs or commercial operators to provide sums of money or food without consideration, pay a "guard" service for their agricultural land, on which they would also have been forced to tolerate the grazing of livestock attributable to the associates, undergo the so-called "return horse" for the return of excavators and other stolen vehicles".
The crime of mafia political electoral exchange was alleged against a mayoral candidate in the 2022 local elections who "accepted the promise of obtaining votes in exchange for money and a commitment to work to facilitate the release of the son of an affiliate".
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