"In central Palermo the Mulè bosses are in charge": 9 arrests

PALERMO – Ballarò is an enclave of the Mulè family. The father Franco and the son Massimo dictated the law in the mafia family of Palermo centro, mandamento of Porta Nuova. They met in a shaving room to decide everything, even how the stalls of one of the historic markets of Palermo should be arranged.

Their names open the list of the nine arrested by the carabinieri of the investigative unit of the provincial command on the orders of the prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia, by the deputy Paolo Guido, and by the substitutes Giovanni Antoci, Gaspare Spedale and Luisa Bettiol.

The lifer father and the unexpected freedom

In 2016, the seventy-year-old Mulè went from life imprisonment to freedom. And he would have regained power, leading the mafia family (competent over the Capo, Ballarò, Kalsa and Vucciria districts) together with his son. He spent 23 years in prison, but he should have been there for life since he was also convicted of three murders.

And instead came the unexpected conversion of the sentence into thirty years by virtue of the Carotti law of 3 January 2000. It remained in force until the following 24 November. The law provided that with the abbreviated procedure the life sentence could be reduced to thirty years. Mulè, like other defendants on trial that year, had already passed the preliminary hearing phase, which is the moment in which an alternative rite such as the abbreviated one can be chosen.

And so Mulè, like other bosses, left prison early. The elderly boss of the Porta Nuova district had also spent the last period of detention under house arrest for serious health reasons.

The son sentenced to freedom

Massimo Mulè, nicknamed "u nicu", (he has a brother, Salvatore, known as "U papparieddu", ended up under accusation in the "Cupola 2.0" investigation, i.e. the one that blocked in the bud the re-foundation of the provincial commission, inactive since the arrest by Riina.

Massimo Mulè, referred to as a mafia boss, was however released from prison by the Review and was acquitted in the first instance. The appeal process - the prosecutors challenged the acquittal - is still ongoing. He returned to prison shortly after in a blitz that revealed the mafia imposition of bouncers in nightclubs. They sentenced him to 6 years in the first instance, but in the meantime he too was free this time . Next week there will be the appeal ruling and, according to the indictment, there is a risk of flight.

extortions and drugs

Now the new and urgent detention that must pass to the scrutiny of the judge for the preliminary investigations. According to the investigations of the carabinieri of the investigative unit, led by lieutenant colonel Salvatore Di Gesare, the Mulè collected the lace on the spot (no one reported), sometimes masking the collection of the money with the raffle, the lottery, of Cosa Nostra; they decided how the stalls should be arranged in the market and which goods should be sold to regulate competition; organized drug trafficking. Ballarò and the nearby streets were their enclave.

The names of the 9 arrested

This is the complete list of those arrested: Francesco Mulè, 75, Massimo Mulè, 50, Gaetano Badalamenti, 53, Francesco Lo Nardo, 63, Giuseppe Mangiaracina, 42, Alessandro Cutrona, 38, Leandro Calogero Naso, 28 years old, Salvatore Gioeli, 56 years old, Antonio Lo Coco, 67 years old.