The case concerns several facts of fencing committed between 2007 and 2008, relating to about 12,000 kg of copper and yard tools stolen all around Sicily.
The "band of copper" had a pyramidal structure in which each member had a specific function, but it was more properly a family-run business: The chief was in charge of the sale of copper, while the grandchildren were responsible for the recovery of stolen copper and other members cleaned up the copper wires from the plugs.
They then deposited the material in a warehouse before selling and delivering it to companies that deal with the recovery of ferrous materials, earning from the sale various hundreds of thousands Euros.
After several complints of theft, the investigation began with a local search performed on 3.07.07 in a storage site for copper and other materials in Palermo, owned by one of the defendants. In the site approximately 1,200 kg of copper were found.
Subsequently, the Financial Police started an activity of interception of communications (telephone tappings) and surveillance, even using a GPS monitoring system on some of the vehicles owned by the defendants.
All of the 16 defendants were accused of the crime of association in an organized criminal group aimed at the commission of crimes against property, in particular fencing and laundering the aforesaid goods.
Article 2 (a) of CTOC says that "Organized criminal group shall mean a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offences established in accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit"; in this case the existence of a structured criminal group was clearly demonstrated by the evidence of close links between the accused (most of the members were infact close relatives).
3 vehicles, used in the commission of crimes.
The legal basis for the confiscation was Italian Criminal Code, item 240.
Tribunale Ordinario di Palermo - Sezione IV Penale (Criminal Court of Palermo -4th Section)
After the investigations and the preliminary hearing (on March 24th 2011), 16 suspects (of the 19 arrested) were committed for trial.
The trial went through 26 hearings and the Judges had to deal with numerous procedural and substantive issues, mainly related to tappings transcription, and admissibility of evidence, and in particular the examination of the results of GPS tracking and other monitoring.
After the taking of evidence and the parties’ discussion, the Court of first instance condemned 6 defendants and absolved 10.
Some of the defendants were imprisoned for 8 years. They were also ordered to pay a fine of 5.000 € and were banned from public office.
The sentence condemned and ordered the imprisonment of 6 of the defendants for up to 8 years, with fines up to 5.000 €.
The Court acquitted the other 10 defendants.
Some of the defendants were sentenced to 3 years imprisonment and ordered a fine of 1.000 €.
The Prosecution ex officio (Public Prosecutor of Palermo) made several complaints of copper theft committed all over Sicily in 2007.
16 persons were accused. All of them (italian, males) were charged with the crime of participation in organized criminal group (article 2 CTOC), in combination with the crime of fencing, concerning copper and yard tools theft (committed by unknown persons between 2007 and 2008), and aimed at obtaining an illicit profit.
This entry was made possible through material provided by the Italian Government.
评论
In addition to the results of satellite (GPS) tracking service, witnesses statements and observation services, interceptions of telephone conversations played a primary role.
The coordination of some of these intercepted conversations with specific monitoring services and with the results of satellite tracking procured an important contribution to the investigation.