https://www.corrieredellacalabria.i...-samba-sara-giudicato-a-reggio-calabria/the investigation
'Ndrangheta and drug dealers, Vincenzo Pasquino's positions reunited in Eureka and Samba. He will be judged in Reggio Calabria
Decision of the GUP of Reggio Calabria during the last hearing. The former broker, now a collaborator of justice, will face only one trial
Published: 06/03/2025 – 16:27
REGGIO CALABRIA Former 'ndrangheta broker and international drug trafficker Vincenzo Pasquino (born in 1990) will be tried before the preliminary investigations judge of the Court of Reggio Calabria . He was born and raised in Turin, but is considered a leading member of the 'ndrangheta and was involved in the maxi-investigation into international drug trafficking "Samba" by the Turin Anti-Mafia District. In particular, it is a complex international investigation involving 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 led, at the time, to the arrests of Nicola and Patrick Assisi.
The joint position
The position of the collaborator of justice, therefore, will be reunited in the “Eureka” proceeding, during the trial celebrated with an abbreviated procedure, as established by the preliminary hearing judge Antonino Foti. Pasquino will thus have to answer to the charges brought by both the Turin and Reggio Calabria DDAs, in a single trial with respect to all the charges concerning him. Last week, however, the defense of one of the defendants, Ivano Piperissa, represented by the lawyers Vincenzo Sorgiovanni and Giuseppe Gervasi, had obtained the acquisition of 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 “Samba” operation. In fact, some of his statements are subject to judgment on their reliability with respect to the reconstructions of the relationships with the exponents of San Luca and Platì and the groups in Brazil for the transport of cocaine loads to Europe.
The accusations in Eureka and Samba
During the proceedings, the statements made by Pasquino before the magistrates of the DDA of Reggio Calabria had already been acquired, but the additional statements that emerged from the documents of the Samba investigation could provide further evidence. The “Eureka” investigation had seen the cooperation of the DDA of Reggio Calabria, Milan and Genoa, of the investigators of Germany, Belgium and Portugal and had dismantled a transnational organization dedicated to money laundering, drug trafficking and arms throughout the world, hitting in particular the Nirta-Strangio clans of San Luca and Morabito of Africo. The same ones, to a large extent, on which the investigators of the Turin Anti-Mafia would have focused, documenting how the Turin criminal group, through the former fugitive Vincenzo Pasquino – arrested in Joao Pessoa on 24 May 2021 – had created solid ties with a local criminal structure in the state of Paraiba. ( g.curcio@corrierecal.it )
