In the more than 368 pages of the precautionary order reconstructing the five-year investigation by the Cagliari District Anti-Mafia Directorate , the word mafia is never mentioned , given that Operation "Termine" – which resulted in 50 people being jailed, nine others under house arrest, and three under house arrest – hypothesizes that two criminal organizations operated on the island: one that purchased large quantities of cocaine from Tuscany and Veneto, the other that transported the drugs on trucks, often fitted with false bottoms.
But investigators from the Anti-Mafia Directorate (DDA), led by prosecutor Rodolfo Sabelli and deputy prosecutor Danilo Tronci, have long had a lead linking one of the two gangs to the Albanian mafia . Cagliari magistrates have apparently been working on this for some time with their colleagues from the National Anti-Mafia Directorate, but for now, the investigation remains strictly confidential.
The precautionary order signed by investigating judge Luca Melis reconstructs how the cocaine (nearly a quintal over the years) arrived in Sardinia from the mainland , but references to the previous stage are completely missing. Who supplied the drugs, hidden in trucks and transported them from Albania to Sardinia, and how did they reach some compatriots in Tuscany and Veneto? The suspicion is that the Albanian mafia was behind it: criminal groups with ties across half of Europe . The Carabinieri of the Carbonia Operations Unit, who actually led the investigation, are reconstructing the ties of some of the eight Albanian suspects with compatriots and relatives who still live across the Adriatic.
