The investigations coordinated by the district anti-mafia directorate of the Milan prosecutor's office on drug trafficking between Italy and Spain ended with 57 warranty notices. The operation, called "Madeira 2019", led last November to the issuance of 42 precautionary measures, six of which were carried out on a European arrest warrant in Spain and the Netherlands. Among those arrested was the then chief prosecutor of the Italian Association of Arbitrators (AIA), Rosario d'Onofrio.
Today the financiers of the provincial command of Milan, in collaboration with the prison police departments with regard to the recipients already detained, have notified in various Italian regions the notice of conclusion of investigations to 57 people of Italian, Spanish and Albanian nationality, one of which already burdened by precedents for mafia association.
The investigation, carried out by the economic-financial police unit of Milan, with the help of the central organized crime investigation service of the Gdf, has made it possible to reconstruct the operation of two distinct transnational criminal associations, able to move in a single year over six tons of drugs, including marijuana and hashish.
During the investigation activities, which also made it necessary to activate the channels of international and European judicial and police cooperation - the financial police says in a note - it was ascertained "the use by criminal associations of vast, capillary and articulated logistical networks of supply, transport, storage and distribution of the drug, through the establishment of multiple shell companies and the use of numerous cover shipments''. According to the investigators, the suspects communicated through sophisticated applications of encrypted messages and to transfer the proceeds of drug trafficking they used a system foreign to traditional financial circuits, based on mechanisms of informal clearing of money matches, called "hawala" or "Fei ch'ien".
Last November, 42 recipients of today's measure had already been affected by personal precautionary measures, of which 6 through the execution of a specific European Arrest Warrant in Spain and the Netherlands, by the competent foreign police collateral bodies with the support of Eurojust and Europol.
The further investigation has now made it possible to identify another association, headed by two brothers of Italian origin who, with the support of a relative and other associates, using an articulated organizational structure in Spain and Italy, have managed the import of large quantities of marijuana and hashish into the national territory, since 2014, through shipments of pallets containing cover loads.
Searches are currently underway in the provinces of Milan and Monza Brianza involving canine units of the financial police, both anti-drug and for the search for currency.