ADRANO - After a raid on a country house on the Italian island of Sicily on Thursday, a father (53) and son (23) from the Netherlands are wanted by local justice. In a drug lab, our compatriots Johan K. and Johan K. junior, it is suspected, produced hard drugs of such poor quality that their use was extremely dangerous. The two are said to have collaborated with local mafia.
This is reported by Italian media. The two Dutchmen, who are said to be from Renkum, were involved in converting what the Italian police called 'waste' into heavy drugs. The raid was carried out in the town of Adrano, a short hour's drive from the eastern city of Catania.
After the operation, which had been prepared for a long time, all sorts of things were seized. The indictment against our compatriots and their co-suspects amounts to over two hundred pages. The 53-year-old Dutchman Johan K. and his 23-year-old son Johan K. junior are considered the main suspects. Their names have been on the long list of suspects that the Public Prosecutor's Office of Catania wants to arrest for some time. They seem to be in the Netherlands at the moment.
The two Dutchmen are accused of drug trafficking, together with 48 others, with the aggravating circumstance that they worked closely with a local criminal group. This concerns the Mazzei clan in Adrano, also known as the Carcagnusi , which in turn is said to belong to the Cosa Nostra . This is the umbrella criminal organization of the various Sicilian mafia families, with the most important one being the clans from Catania and Palermo.
Chemical process A few years ago, father and son K. arrived in Sicily to process large quantities of marijuana and turn it into harder drugs, such as heroin. This is done through a chemical process involving acids. They first came onto the radar of investigators in June 2021, when a conversation was intercepted between Giuseppe Viaggio, a 41-year-old alleged mafia boss of the Mazzei clan who also goes by U Puffu , and 39-year-old Carmela Scalisi.
The two – according to judicial documents signed by investigating judge Stefano Montoneri, reported by the Italian media QDS – discussed renting a property outside Adrano to house three men who could not be seen with them and the other suspects. The investigations that followed soon shed light on who the people were who had to be housed: the two Dutchmen. Father and son K. went to live in a house in the countryside of Lentini, in the San Giovanni Arcimusa district, an hour from Adrano.
"A laboratory was set up in the house for processing marijuana," the investigating judge wrote. The ingredients processed by father and son were said to have been of very poor quality. This is confirmed by the analyses carried out on hard drugs seized in July of the same year from a man who was in possession of a package weighing more than seven kilos, which apparently came from the Lentini laboratory.
“It was a lethal mixture of substances, sold at a very low price as a derivative of marijuana, when in reality it contained dried marijuana leaves of poor quality,” it said. “It had been treated with various solvents, including acids from used car batteries.”
During the investigation, investigators monitored the two Dutchmen and the people they visited at various times. All involved appeared to be close to the Mazzei group, which was allegedly led in Adrano by Cristian Lo Cicero, a 38-year-old known as Cri.
Other Gangs From the investigation documents, Lo Cicero emerges as a person who strives to make his way in organized crime, even in an area like Adranita, where the presence of other gangs – the Santangelo and the Scalisi – makes it dangerous. Nevertheless, Lo Cicero would have planned to get control of the drug trade. It would have led some rivals to form an alliance with each other to prevent that. A violent retaliation against the Mazzei member was even being prepared.
Lo Cicero threatened to wage a mafia war if necessary, stating that he was prepared to resort to violence using motorcycles and weapons.
