The alleged international drug trafficking broker Andrea Deiana, on the run for a year and a half, has been arrested in Mexico. The 42-year-old, who was also the owner of an art gallery in Amsterdam and who used the nickname "Banksy" in encrypted chats, ended up in handcuffs as part of the investigations by the Milan Flying Squad and the prosecutor Silvia Bonardi, who had already brought to 31 precautionary measures on 13 May 2022, when the alleged drug trafficker was untraceable.
Deiana, explains the Prosecutor's Office led by Marcello Viola, "had invested part of the proceeds of the illicit activity in the purchase of a lithograph signed by the famous British street artist". The work, «among the best known of the streetpainter, “The Flower Thrower”, whose mural is known to be found in Jerusalem on the wall that separates Israel from Palestine», had been «insured for an amount equal to 2 million euros." Recovered and seized by investigators, "it had been entrusted by the fugitive to a gallery owner in Milan in order to monetize its economic value and thus cover the costs of being on the run". That is, he had sold it for just under two million euros.
On 13 May 2022, in the DDA investigation centered on the accusation of association for the purpose of international drug trafficking, searches and precautionary measures were carried out against 31 people, the majority of whom were believed to belong to an association for crime structured at multiple levels and with ramifications across a large part of the national, European and intercontinental territory". In 2019, 24 people were arrested red-handed and 36 kg of cocaine, 87 kg of hashish, 32 kg of ketamine, 9 kg of marijuana were seized, as well as 244 thousand euros in cash. With the first degree sentences, sentences for a total of 150 years of imprisonment were imposed. Deiana, at the top of the group, had moved to Mexico in the aftermath of the blitz.
(Unioneonline/ss)