"The most alarming criminal phenomenon on the Island is certainly that related to robberies of armored vans and even of the vaults of security transport companies". The Attorney General, Luigi Patronaggio, has no doubts. The head of the investigating magistrates of the Island asks not to lower the guard against organizations that also operate with mafia methods, also raising the alarm on the risk of speculation on renewables. "Maximum attention is needed from the judiciary and the police", he said on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the judicial year, "for possible criminal infiltration in the projects to build wind and photovoltaic plants on the Island".
Cash transport emergency
But the number one emergency remains the assaults on armored vehicles. "These robberies," Patronaggio specified, "are carried out by criminals who have no qualms about threatening public safety, blocking important communication arteries, using explosives and weapons of war."
The Mafia on the Island
"A fact dispensed with too much superficiality", continues the Attorney General, "is that in Sardinia there are no mafia organizations. However, episodes such as the assault in Sassari, and such as the one sculpted in the "Monte Nuovo" investigation of the DDA of Cagliari, in addition to the issues related to drug trafficking, make credible the investigative hypothesis according to which the old armed gangs, in the past specialized in kidnappings for extortion purposes, today constitute a criminal association phenomenon, operating according to the methods provided for by the crime of mafia-style criminal association, which should not be underestimated in any way".
Illegal plantations
The other emergency is the one related to marijuana plantations, as also specified by the president of the Court of Appeal, Gemma Cucca, reporting the large number of trials that concern the cultivations. «In recent years there has been a constant growth of the phenomenon», specified Patronaggio, «which has seen Sardinia as the second Italian region producing marijuana».
