Multinationals and cigarette smuggling

The two major tobacco companies: Philips Morrison and Reynolds,
cured from Basel export of tobacco products through two
Organizations: Export One, through which they sold to areas such as the duty
free shop and diplomatic offices or airlines; Export and Two, which
using predetermined dealers and commercial channels, he sent the
tobacco in Montenegro and Albania. Investigations of the 80s showed
which, through the Export Two, was part of smuggling.
According to the Report of the Anti-Mafia Commission, the same channel was used
also to convey drugs and weapons. Under  of Export Two, conveyed
the export of foreign tobacco products to European countries in the Middle East,
were cured through three concessionaires: espite the AG Werner Dens,
the Balmex AG Patrick Laurent and AG Basileo George Kastl.
Licensed Switzerland were manufactured tobacco for Albania, while in Antwerp
(Belgium) left for Albania tobacco products manufactured in the United States. Export Channel
Two were used for drug trafficking and money laundering of funds
from the same criminal activity. It was also found that Werner
Dens, along with his brother Martin, using also an office in Greece
provided logistical assistance to vessels used, from time to time, to the transport of
drugs or cigarettes.
  On the sidelines of these investigations focused on the characters mentioned and the Swiss
concessionary companies of multinational cigarette, had appeared
also the subjects of Puglia, involved only for heroin trafficking
quantitatively lower than those Sicilians.
Here begins to enter the crime of Puglia.
The first episode is related to the arrest of Matthew Albano Andria occurred
Barletta March 22, 85, for possession of 1 kg of heroin, along with some accomplices
Sicilians. From police wiretaps on Matthew Albano Station
Barletta, it was learned that the substance seized was part of a quantity
total of 50 kg, Philip Messina had to provide Puglia. particular
important of the whole operation was that it belonged to Antonio Simone
same organization reported in 82 of which were part Waridel Musullulu,
The Morning and Werner Dens.
A second episode, it also symptomatic of these links, you had with
arrest in Zurich of Puglia John Moschetta and Franco Imbroscia coming
from Bangkok and found in possession of about 2 kg of heroin. A few days after the arrest of
Imbroscia, it turned out that the same Imbroscia, had addressed the Balmex (of
Patrick Laurent) a letter containing a general call for help, following
which needed the support of a good lawyer. Even crime brindisina enter into this round: for a long period
structurally smuggling of tobacco products, has not played a role
National foreground, however, subordinate to that of Sicily and Campania. the
turning towards the Apulian organized forms of crime, borrowed (with the requisite
adaptations) from other traditional organizations, there was towards the end of the year
70 '.
In this period, in fact, being almost locked on smuggling
coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Camorra organizations bells were the need to
find alternative outlets on the Adriatic coast facing Albania. The coasts of
Salento lent themselves well to these operations, which together with tobacco is
also extended to drug trafficking, resulting in the landing area
Brindisi to all other traditional criminal organizations always interested
in these trades. This was the historical moment in which criminal groups Brindisi, in
Since 1983, under the leadership of Pino Rogoli of Mesa, were organized in
"Sacra Corona Unita" on the federal model of the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria (which some
were already members), but no top-down structures.
The dr. Palmieri had the opportunity to talk with Emily, the current mayor of Bari, in that
period magistrate, asking for information on Pine Rogoli. From the investigations was
Rogoli out that it was not a criminal prominent: because he was arrested in Giovinazzo
a tobacconist killed in a robbery, was sentenced to life in prison and met
'Ndrangheta in Calabria, who taught him how to be born a criminal structure
organized.
Once created as an organization, together with the Holy Crown, was part of a first
time in the smuggling of tobacco, later loathing activities
other organizations or imposing a tangent on tobacco landed on the shores
Puglia, Campania counteracting the expansionism of the smugglers. So, thanks
also to underestimation of smuggling, Brindisi is
transformed by smugglers in the mafia, with all the implications for their
very useful for this mutation.
Pine Rogoli in the Sacra Corona Unita, had now become an almost regime
monopoly of tobacco smuggling, required the payment (on the model of
Raffaele Cutolo) of 10,000 pounds per cigarette case landed in Puglia from other
criminal groups that were not part of the local organization.
The centrality of Apulia and its role as a strategic hub of crime
organized, they were immediately following the final consolidation
institutional and economic crisis of the various Eastern European countries: Albania, first of all, the
breakup of Yugoslavia and the subsequent closure of the Balkan route to
trafficking to Western Europe.
The crime took on international dimensions of Puglia, having contacts with the
various mafias Eastern, including Turkish, Russian and Chinese. In this context,
Toast with its province, it becomes even more central. In fact, the stretch of coastline that stretches north of the Gargano to Brindisi city, is affected by trafficking
from Montenegro (primarily tobacco smuggling, but also weapons
and drugs from the former Yugoslavia).
While the territory that extends from Brindisi city to Salento, is interested in the traffic
of illegal immigrants, of women for prostitution, marijuana and other
drugs from Albania, in practice, a convenient
territorial division of the two flows, avoiding obstacles and overlaps, not
harmed the various criminal organizations engaged in related fields. also
the coast of Bari was divided for family Savino Parisi had a hand, Capriati it
had another, it was all scientifically organized.
You have an idea (very approximate, since the illegal activities and therefore difficult to
quantification) of the value of the business taking place on the shores brindisine,
starting from both the undeniable connection between the channels of trade
drugs, tobacco, weapons and other things, that by the consideration that
the goods are seized by the police, is just the tip of the iceberg of
what is actually placed on the market, as well as drawing on data
procedural available.
From this framework, it turns out that: in the field of contraband cigarettes was
a billionaire traffic between Montenegro, Puglia and Campania in which they were
involved institutional representatives of the State of Montenegro until the smugglers
Brindisi. The supplies, leaving deposits of Montenegro, always took place
with continers, each container contained 960 cases of cigarettes with fifty
splints for cash. The purchase price ranged, depending on the brand of cigarettes, from
270 to 320 U.S. dollars in cash, for a total value of each continer 260/310 000
dollars.
From the investigation it was established that they are treated batches of fifty to continers
month, for an amount of money of 15 million dollars. Taking into account the cost of
purchase of a carton of cigarettes in 8/9000 pounds, and the retail outlet
25/30 thousand pounds, the smuggling activities of the group of Ciro Mazzarella (racketeer
Neapolitan), was estimated to be worth an annual minimum of 200 billion lire, and
for a net profit of over 6 billion monthly.
When you consider that these figures only refer to the smuggling of tobacco and
one organization of many that worked on the Apulian coast, and
"Tax" of 10,000 pounds for each fund, the Sacra Corona Unita requiring all
alien smugglers, there is a perception that the river billion
cigarette smuggling moving. If we add up the revenues of all the other
illicit activities, including narcotics and weapons, the numbers become huge. It should be
pointed out that the amounts described refer to 1993.
Despite these developments, organizations clan Puglia are to be evaluated
with parameters different from those used for other criminal organizations. the
District Directorate of Lecce says that there is a part of the Sacra Corona Unita with international connections, and identified in the affected part. Remains free fringe
with connections in the Netherlands and in Brazil for drug trafficking, which uses the
fugitives who moved in those countries.