Drug trafficking, intimidation, favors - even at an institutional level, with career advancement and transfers -, up to aid to ensure Graziano Mesina's fugitive status.
The one that ended up at the center of the "Monte Nuovo" investigation, which led to 13 people in prison and another 18 under house arrest, was a "liquid organisation": this is how the leaders of the ROS, the special operations department of the Carabinieri which together with the Cacciatori di Sardegna he carried out the precautionary custody order issued by the Cagliari court at the request of the Anti-Mafia District Prosecutor's Office.
White collar workers
An investigation that links the world of drugs and banditry to that of white collar workers: among the people who ended up in prison are the former regional councilor for Agriculture Gabriella Murgia and the director of the pain therapy department of the Binaghi Tomaso hospital Coconut.
The group of suspects - who are accused of various crimes, from mafia association to secret association via drug trafficking - had a high ability to "condition and intimidate", as explained by the commander of the ROS Pasquale Angelosanto, derived from the links with the Anonima kidnappings and by the name of Graziano Mesina, helped during the period of fugitive.
The names of those arrested
Among them are Nicolò Cossu (known as Cioccolato, implicated in various famous kidnappings such as those of Vinci, Licheri and Checchi), indicated as the "promoter" of the association, and Tonino Crissantu , relative of Mesina. In addition to the two of them, and to Murgia and Cocco, nine other people ended up in cell this morning at dawn : they are Alessandro Arca, Vincenzo Deidda, Mario Antonio Floris, Battista Mele, Giovanni Mercurio, Antonio Giuseppe Mesina, Desiderio Mulas, Paolo Murgia and Alessandro Rocca. Another eighteen under house arrest: Vito Maurizio Cossu, Andrea Daga, Alessia Deidda, Alice Deidda, Antonio Fadda, Giuseppe Paolo Frongia, Anna Gioi, Raffaele Gioi, Salvatore Gioi, Marco Lai, Tomas Littarru, Antonio Marteddu, Riccardo Mercuriu, Serafino Monni, Marco Muntoni, Antonio Michele Pinna, Paolo Sale, Marco Zanardi.
Drug trafficking
The gang financed itself through drug trafficking. Importation of cocaine from the Peninsula and exportation of marijuana grown in Sardinia to Piedmont and Lombardy. «It is no mystery that the island has become one of the major producers of cannabis», recalled the deputy commander of the ROS Gianluca Valerio. But the group's activities went far beyond drugs. «The investigations highlighted a mixed environment, in which people could meet at various levels to decide strategies, favors in exchange for violence and intimidation, even at the highest institutional levels», added Giorgio Mazzoli, commander of the Cagliari ROS department.
Murgia and Cocco
It is in this context that former councilor Gabriella Murgia would have played a role. This morning the police searched the offices where he worked. And also the pain therapy department directed by Tomaso Cocco: investigators have ascertained that some of the group's meetings were hosted in the premises of the Binaghi hospital, among other things during the long period of restrictions linked to Covid.