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THE PROCESS
'Ndrangheta and drug trafficking from South America: doubts about the stories of the repentant Vincenzo Pasquino
The minutes of the Samba investigation were acquired in the abbreviated version of Eureka. Some contradictions of the narcos could put his credibility at risk
Published: 27/02/2025 – 6:16

REGGIO CALABRIA The credibility of a very important collaborator of justice is at stake, that of Vincenzo Pasquino, born in 1990, born and raised in Turin, an international drug trafficking broker in business with the 'ndrangheta along the routes that led from Italy to South America and Brazil. Pasquino is fully included at the top of the 'ndrangheta club in Volpiano, Piedmont, but he is also considered an exponent of the "new generation" of the same club, especially after the various operations that had hit the Assisi and Agresta families and the detention of the boss, Antonio Agresta (class of '60).

Capture and extradition
Pasquino was extradited to Italy after being detained in Brazil since 2021, the year in which he was arrested in a residence in Joao Pessoa by the federal police of the South American country and the Carabinieri of the ROS, after a period of fugitiveism, while he was in the company of the 'ndrangheta boss and drug trafficker Rocco Morabito.
Some of his statements made in the reports in Brazil at the end of November 2023 and those attached to the arrest warrant of the operation "Samba" of the Turin DDA, were acquired in the context of the "Eureka" proceedings - in abbreviated form - as requested by the lawyers Vincenzo Sorgiovanni and Giuseppe Gervasi, defenders of the defendant Ivano Piperissa and ordered by the preliminary hearing judge of the Court of Reggio Calabria.

READ ALSO: Drug trafficking from South America and links with the 'ndrangheta: 23 arrests between Italy and Brazil – VIDEO

The “Samba” Investigation
Pasquino, in particular, is involved in the investigation of the Turin DDA called “Samba”, a complex international investigation concerning three criminal groups, distinct from each other but connected, dedicated to drug trafficking on the Atlantic route. A cooperation developed with the Brazilian authorities since 2019 and which had led, at the time, to the arrests of Nicola and Patrick Assisi. The investigation, moreover, would have allowed to identify important connections between the spheres of the Italian 'ndrangheta and the criminal organizations supplying narcotics operating in the South American country , capable of moving large quantities of drugs, in particular cocaine, towards Europe via the ports of Paranà. The Turin investigation has also documented how the Turin criminal group, through the former fugitive Vincenzo Pasquino – arrested in Joao Pessoa on 24 May 2021 – had solid ties with a local criminal structure in the state of Paraiba.

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Relations with the Assisi, the PCC, Platì and the Sanlucoti
The defense, therefore, contested several statements made by the collaborator of justice. Starting with the relationships with the Assisi that the repentant says - in the reports - to have "interrupted to reach an agreement with the Brazilian PCC" . Relationships that the prosecutors of the Turin DDA first and the investigating judge later, had instead defined as "indissoluble" thanks to a series of investigative elements that emerged on the relationships between Pasquino, the "Platioti" and the Assisi. As reconstructed by the “Samba” investigation, in fact, Vincenzo Pasquino, after his release from prison in May 2017, worked to obtain a passport and, once obtained, he left for Calabria in the direction of Platì to carry out a decisive task in the drug trafficking business: to act as “guarantor” for the Platioti in Brazil, as recounted by the same informer in some reports, while in others he had included the Nirta family of San Luca – known through Ivano Piperissa – in search of a «collaborator for the “climbs” from the port of Santos». Pasquino himself, in some of his statements - and this is another of the lawyers' objections - talks about the Assisi's lack of trust in the Platioti family for the exfiltration of a 200kg load of cocaine from the port of Gioia Tauro , in others, however, he talks about "having gone to Brazil to help Antonio Agresta" for the transatlantic route, "thanks to the "exit" at Gioia Tauro through Rosario Grasso" and "having gone to Brazil to provide material help to the Assisi family after Michael's arrest".

READ ALSO: 'Ndrangheta, Pasquino's revelations: «Those from San Luca were not as reliable as the platioti»

The Assisi and the passport
Vincenzo Pasquino also told buyers that he had severed ties with the Assisis in the summer of 2018 and resumed them only two years later . But when Patrick and Michael Assisis were arrested in July 2019, the Brazilian authorities found in their home, during the search, the original passport of Vicenzo Pasquino , but also the manuscript from which no cargo was sent to Gioia Tauro, contrary to the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam. The Brazilian authorities had asked Vicenzo Pasquino to account for the presence of a copy of his passport and a receipt for the plane tickets also in his name, found at the Assisis' home. Without, however, giving a clear explanation. "All those expenses were paid by the family. An accounting of all the expenses incurred had to be kept. For example, in 2021 I spent 20,000 euros just on cryptophones, since I also bought them from Pateta and other Brazilians…».

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Pour us
And then there is the figure of Michelangelo Versaci (born in 1986) , investigated in the “Samba” investigation. According to the informer, the latter had urged him not to tell the platioti anything «about the business that he had facilitated with the Nirtas», even though he had told him that «the Nirtas were not reliable» . In the minutes, in fact, Pasquino explains: «(…) in 2017 he had asked me to open a channel through Pinuccio and Ivano Piperissa with the Nirtas of San Luca and Sebastiano Giampaolo, then he came in 2018 to tell me that instead it was safer to work remaining with the platioti».
These are, therefore, disputes that will then have to be addressed and clarified point by point in the trial phase. What could emerge from this is a completely unpredictable scenario that could also have significant repercussions on the investigations that, precisely from the statements of Vincenzo Pasquino, have had a significant starting point. His position in the “Samba” proceedings, finally, could soon be reunited in the abbreviated “Eureka”. (g.curcio@corrierecal.it)