The illegal landfill business in Messina, 10 arrests

MESSINA - The rumor had spread quickly. The entrepreneurs knew they could turn to the non-profit social cooperative 'Sofia.it' to illegally dispose of mountains of waste. Ten people ended up under house arrest. The Messina judge for preliminary investigations applied the temporary ban on operating a business to 15 other suspects . Company vehicles and complexes were subjected to preventive seizure for a value of over two million euros.

The Mancuso business

The 'Sofia.it', which belongs to the Mancuso family, managed a landfill of 38,000 square meters, in the Corrao district of Gravitelli, a district a few kilometers from the city center. The investigation is coordinated by the Messina anti-mafia district management, still led for a few hours by the prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia, who will take office in Palermo tomorrow. The companies involved, as emerges from the investigations of the Economic and Financial Police Unit from the provincial command of Messina, are allegedly linked to "subjects contiguous to noble mafia clans active in the southern area of ??the city".

The links with Cosa Nostra

At the head of the traffic there would be the reference figure of the Romeo-Santapaola clan for the execution of earthmoving works in the province of Messina. It was the satellite images that immortalized the trucks as they unloaded the "earthwork" coming from different construction sites: tiles, bricks, plastics of any kind, containers, bags and sheets, polystyrene, cardboard, plasterboard, pipes, various crushed stone, scarification, wheels of cars, wooden platforms, parts of furniture for a total of 2,978 cubic meters: 5,333,400 kilos for a corresponding illicit gain of about 220,000 euros.

An ecological bomb in Messina

The helicopters of the air-naval group of Palermo took off to resume the landfill from above.
It is located upstream of the Portalegni stream, on the hills of Messina. An ecological bomb also for the hydrogeological risk. The mountain of waste acts as a stopper for the drainage of rainwater. Thus the floods become disastrous. Building contractors and road hauliers turned to Sofia.it. The costs for waste disposal were cut down. To give a semblance of irregularity, the suspects would also have prepared the documentation at the table.

The arrested

The following ends up under house arrest: Daniele Mancuso, 56 (electronic bracelet and prohibition of contacts with people other than family members); Giuseppe Mancuso, 35 years old (prohibition of contact with non-cohabiting people); Antonio Maita, 60 years old; Andrea Mancuso, 22 years old; Fabio Mangano, 43 years old; Giuseppe Mangano, 51 years old; Antonino Marino, 63 years old; Letterio Mondo, 60 years old; Giuseppe Puliafito, 37 years old; Antonino Romeo, 65 years old.