Maxi anti-drug operation by the Parma Public Prosecutor’s Office: 25 arrests for a round of coca and hashish worth 850 thousand euros

Maxi anti-drug operation by the Carabinieri of Parma, coordinated by the local Public Prosecutor’s Office and supported by colleagues from the commands of Bergamo, Brescia, Reggio Emilia and Bologna.

The military carried out a precautionary custody order issued by the Gip of the capital against 28 people in several cities of Emilia Romagna and Lombardy (including 20 in prison, five under house arrest and three with reporting obligations to the judicial police), as part of an investigation involving 33 suspects.

Overall, seventeen custody orders in prison, five house arrest orders and three signature orders have been carried out to date.

The precautionary order essentially disputes the crimes of detention for the purpose of dealing and selling drugs, but also robbery and injury.

The investigations originated in July 2020 following the seizure of a small amount of the drug.

In this way, an articulated investigative activity was developed, through wiretapping (telephone and environmental), checks on the territory, taking information from people who were drug purchasers.

This made it possible to acquire circumstantial elements on many subjects, who proved to be able to move large quantities of cocaine and hashish destined to be sold, through a branched network of drug dealers, to a large number of consumers, variously located in the territory of the province of Parma. (Parma, Sorbolo, Noceto, Lesignano de ‘Bagni, Busseto, Felino).

The main supply channels would be some suppliers operating in Bologna, in the neighboring municipalities of the Reggio area and in some centers of the Bergamo area (so much so that, for nine suspects, at the same time as the issue of the precautionary order, the investigating judge declared the territorial competence of another authority judicial).

The suspects used prepaid telephone cards made out to non-existent people, then making deliveries by frequently changing means of transport, sometimes hired.

The use of coverage phrases also emerged from the telephone conversations. The suspects used to indicate hashish (the stuff of Morocco; zatla – slang term used by the Maghrebians -; blaka – to indicate a one pound stick; one day / one and a half euro – to indicate a 1.5 kg), or cocaine (chewing gum or small doses of cocaine; shoe with a number – e.g. shoe no. 60 to indicate 60 grams; two shoes – to indicate two quantities of drug; meriam -100 grams-; body -50 grams- ; or a large one, a small one, to indicate doses of one and a half grams; oil).

During the investigations, numerous seizures were carried out for a total of 10 kg of drug (of which over 600 grams of cocaine, over 8,700 grams of hashish and over 300 grams of marijuana) and nine arrests in the act of crime, results which, at present, appear to support the investigative thesis, despite the meaning apparently devoid of logical sense of various conversations, in the course of which the suspects sometimes limited themselves to fixing a simple meeting.

During the activity, in addition to the arrests and kidnappings, serious indications of a crime were acquired against subjects believed to be the perpetrators of a robbery that took place in Parma on 13 July 2020, when three of the suspects attacked and kicked a two boys with a pistol to take possession of the sum of about a thousand euros, causing one of them head trauma injuries with a lacerated bruised wound and various bruises in the chest.

At the end of the investigative activity, elements were acquired which revealed the probative gravity of the suspects who from July 2020 to March 2021 would have carried out purchases and sales for over 6 kg of cocaine and 47.5 kg of hashish.

Based on an approximate calculation, taking into account that the average price of cocaine is 50 euros per gram (which then becomes 80 euros to the final consumer), the total value of the cocaine handled is around 300 thousand euros (about 500 thousand if we consider the retail price), while for hashish, calculating an average cost of four thousand euros per kilogram (which then becomes seven thousand euros to the final consumer), the total value moved is around 200 thousand euros (about 350 thousand if we consider the price retail).

Therefore, at current market prices, the total value of the drug marketed, at retail, would be around 850 thousand euros.

The investigating judge issued a total of 28 orders as well as the preventive seizure of a large engine car (as it was considered to be permanently used, with cleverly created structural changes, for the transport of the drug) and of a property worth almost 100 thousand euros.