The Carabinieri of the Provincial Command of Palermo carried out a precautionary measure against 11 people accused in various ways of mafia-type association, drug possession, personal aiding and abetting and attempted extortion with the aggravating circumstance of the mafia method. They would all be members of the mafia family of Torretta, a municipality in the province of Palermo, which has always had solid ties with the New York mafia. The investigations coordinated by the DDA led to nine people in prison, one under house arrest and one obliged to stay in the municipality of residence.
At the center of the investigation are the district of Passo di Rigano and the mafia family of Torretta, a small village with just over 4,000 inhabitants in the Palermo hinterland, which has always been a mafia stronghold allied to the so-called 'escaped', bosses of the faction defeated by the Corleonesi of Totò Riina at the end of the second mafia war and forced into exile in the USA.
An important role in the clan would have
Raffaele Di Maggio
, son of the historic mafia exponent
Giuseppe Di Maggio
called 'Piddu', who died in January 2019. Loyal to the boss were
Ignazio Antonino
Mannino, also with a managerial and organizational function,
Calogero Badalamenti to
whom he had been entrusted control over the territory of Bellolampo,
The pizzini for
Matteo Messina Denaro
went to Torretta. According to investigators
Lorenzo Di Maggio
, known as "Lorenzino", who returned to freedom in 2017, the
role of message collector would have played
. It is the repentant
Antonino Pipitone
who accuses him of having been the postman of the messages for the boss of Castelvetrano. "Most of the pizzini both from the province and from the districts of Palermo that had to get to the superlatant always came to him", claimed the justice collaborator. "Tickets were given to him where he worked or at his mother's house." Pipitone revealed that the pizzini were then delivered by Di Maggio to
Calogero Caruso
, "who in turn delivered them to Campobello di Mazara, using the car of the Municipality of Torretta where Caruso was working at the time".
Lorenzo Di Maggio, known as 'Lorenzino' released from prison in August 2017 and subjected to the measure of special surveillance with the obligation to stay in the municipality of Carini, Calogero Caruso, known as Merendino, considered a top figure of the 'family', his nephew Filippo Gambino and Calogero Christian Zito, who was commuting between Sicily and the USA.
The survey activities also involved two brothers from Torretta.
The investigations have documented the link with leading exponents of the American "Cosa Nostra" capable of influencing, through its own emissaries, the criminal assets of the clan. The Torretta mafia would have entered the legal economic fabric, including construction, agriculture and livestock breeding through direct intervention in the dynamics of the sale of animals and land. The clan would also have controlled public and private orders not only in Torretta but also in the neighboring municipalities of Capaci, Isola delle Femmine and Carini, as well as in some districts of Palermo that are part of the "district" of Passo di Rigano.
At the end of September 2018, an emissary from the American Cosa Nostra was welcomed by the top management of the Torretta mafia family. The man's stay in the area was covered, among others, by two entrepreneur brothers who, dividing the roles, would have taken him at the airport and guaranteed his stay in a luxurious villa with swimming pool in Mondello, giving him cocaine as a sign of welcome.