Thursday, December 12th 2002: "Evenimentul Zilei Discovers Tentacles of Yet Another Italian Mafia Organization"
Less than two months after the revelations on the involvement of the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, in Romania, Evenimentul Zilei has discovered that another large Italian Mafia organization has been active in our country for the past few years. It is the Sacra Corona Unita (SCU); its historical headquarters is in the Italian region of Puglia and it is one of the most powerful Italian Mafia organizations, along with the Cosa Nostra, Camorra, and Ndragheta. Recently, officers of the Italian Anti-Mafia Directorate (DIA), in cooperation with the Organized Crime police in Turin, broke up a large international cigarette-smuggling ring. The operation culminated in eight arrests, searches, and seizures throughout Italy. The operation was codenamed Codice Raimondi and broke up a business estimated at 3 million euros per month. According to initial estimates, it had been going on for almost two years as precisely as clockwork: four shipments of cigarettes per month, each worth 700,000 euros. The actions of the Italian police revealed that the SCU had organized a cigarette-smuggling route that went through Romania.
Until 2000, smuggled cigarettes usually left Montenegro directly for Italy by sea to the Puglian coast, which is only 200 miles from Montenegro. In 2000 the Italian police declared war on the Puglian smugglers and boosted their inspections. These ended up in dramatic confrontations, with the police and the smugglers engaged in gun battles, police cars being shattered by the armored jeeps belonging to the smugglers, and gunfights resulting in dead and wounded on both sides. As a result, the Mafia decided to change its cigarette-smuggling routes, setting up bases in Romania and Bulgaria.
According to data issued by the Turin police, 2 million packs of smuggled cigarettes left Montenegro every week with legal documents, going to companies in Romania and Bulgaria. Later the cigarettes were hidden in trucks with a false bottom among various other goods and they left Romania for Trieste; then they reached warehouses in northern Italy (Piedmont, Lombardy, and Veneto). From the Italian warehouses, the cigarettes were distributed all over Italy and Europe, especially to Spain and Britain.
Camouflage
Although 10 arrest warrants were issued in Operation Codice Raimondi, only eight individuals have been arrested, seven Italians and an Egyptian. Egyptian Hamed Mohamed Moustafa Mamdouh, 52, is one of the men accused of ensuring the functioning of the Romanian network. Italia police data suggest that the Egyptian established branches for certain offshore [preceding word in English] firms in so-called Romanian "free zones," which do not have customs duties. Through those firms, the Egyptian used to buy cigarettes legally. The cigarettes arrived in Montenegrin ports and then they left, again legally, for Romania, to the Egyptian's firms. In Romania, the cigarettes were hidden in trucks so that they could be shipped to Europe without customs duties being included in the price. In other words, the cigarettes became smuggled goods in Romania.
The smuggling ring was discovered by chance in April 2000, when the Italian police were chasing traffickers in stolen cars. The investigations led to the warehouses of a car service in Piedmont, owned by Italian Pierino Longhi, 50. The police realized that, apart from stolen cars, there were also huge amounts of smuggled cigarettes in the warehouses. The investigation grew and was taken over by the DIA in Turin.
The "Brain" in Switzerland
After almost two years of surveillance and telephone wiretapping, they discovered that this was an international organized crime ring, led by a Swiss: Patrick Roger Monnier, nicknamed Raimond, 49, born in France and living in Switzerland. Monnier's name surfaced in investigations conducted in 1995 and 1999 on smuggling rings controlled by Mafia boss Francesco Prudentino of the SCU, one of the most powerful Mafia organizations in Italy. Prudentino, 52, nicknamed the "king" of international cigarette smuggling, controlled the trafficking in cigarettes in Montenegro and Italy along the old maritime route. On 22 December 2000, Prudentino was arrested in Thessalonica, Greece and extradited to Italy. Monnier has been sought for a long time for his contacts with the Mafia.
In tomorrow's issue we will come back with other details on this cigarette-smuggling network in Romania.
The Romanian Police Do Not Know Anything!
Contacted by telephone, Mihai Stoica, director of the DCCOC [Department in Charge of Fighting Organized Crime and Corruption], told us that he did not know anything about this smuggling operation: "This is not ours. Ask the economic department of the IGP [General Police Inspectorate]." We took his advice and contacted Dumitru Sorescu, deputy head of the IGP. He had not heard of any cigarette smuggling, either, so there is no current investigation of this issue.
Giuseppe Gazzo: "I Am Not Involved in Smuggling"
One of the people who were not arrested in Operation Codice Raimondi is Italian Gazzo, 37, of Verona. According to La Stampa, Gazzo told the Italian police that he was currently in Romania and would turn himself in as soon as he reached Italy. Evenimentul Zilei has discovered that Gazzo has a firm in Romania, dealing in "goods shipments by road." The firm is called Fiandra Com SRL, and it was established in 1995 in an apartment in Turda: the partners are Gazzo and Gabriela Secheres, 27, of Turda. We managed to contact Gazzo by telephone, as he was still in Romania: "The accusations against me are only based on the statements of a collaborator of the Italian police, who lied. I have heard that an arrest warrant has been issued in my name in Italy and my headquarters in Italy has been searched. I contacted the Italian magistrates by telephone and told them that I would go to Italy as soon as I finished my urgent business in Romania. I was indeed contacted by the group of Egyptian Hamed Mohamed, but we did not do any business together. I know that he had a firm in Bucharest, established on behalf of another Egyptian, who is in London. I have various businesses in Romania, I have purchased several warehouses, but that does not mean I am involved in smuggling," Gazzo told us.