• Piacenza, the interrogation of the carabinieri started yesterday
  • Carabinieri Piacenza: a criminal pyramid that started in 2017
  • Carabinieri arrested in Piacenza, today interrogations
  • Piacenza, six Carabinieri arrested and barracks under seizure

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July 25, 2020 "Mostly I was talking to Montella, who told me that in any case all the other carabinieri of the station were 'under his chapel', including the commander Orlando. Sometimes I also spoke with Falanga". Thus, last January, in front of the investigators, the young Moroccan pusher who passed the information to the unfaithful carabinieri of the Levante barracks in Piacenza, describes the figure of the accused Giuseppe Montella, the leader of the group, known many years earlier because he was an athletic trainer of a soccer team he had been part of.

This is what emerges from the more than 900 pages of the request for precautionary measures signed by the Piacenza prosecutor in charge of the 'Odyssesus' investigation. '' Montella '', the informant explained again, '' very explicitly told me that if I had had some 'cooked and eaten' operation, without carrying out long investigations, a part of the money and the narcotic equal to 10% could to have given myself as compensation ''. The informant was also reassured by the same carabiniere that "in the case of any checks I could make his name and even call him personally". 

The audio recordings of the declarations of the 26-year-old - already arrested in the past for drug dealing and in the meantime informer of the accused Giuseppe Montella - had been heard by the major of the carabinieri Rocco Papaleo, today commander of the Cremona Company and at the time guide of the investigative team of Piacenza, convened on that occasion for another investigation, and which thus started the investigation.  

Meanwhile, interrogations continue,
Giacomo Falanga , one of the arrested carabinieri, rejected all the charges. This was explained by his lawyer, Daniele Mancini, at the end of the interrogation. The photo with the money in hand next to two drug dealers? "A scratch card win 5 years ago." The Nigerian pounded? "No violence, a swashbuckling from Montella. He fell during the chase." The military, explained the lawyer Daniele Mancini, "answered all the questions and provided all the explanations on the episodes concerning him. He has a very normal standard of living and no clue that connects him to the drug. It is very proven ". According to the lawyer, Falanga is extraneous to any charge. The photo in which he shows wads of money with Montella and the two brothers Daniele and Simone Giardino (both arrested), "has nothing to do with Gomorrah. It comes from social networks - says the lawyer - is from 2016, was on Facebook with a lot of comments and it's the result of a scratch card win ". As for the story of the alleged torture suffered by an Egyptian drug dealer in which Falanga says that his two colleagues Montella and Chaplain must be a "good cop and a bad cop", the lawyer denies the violence and adds. "You can't convict a person for a joke, things have to be contextualized". "Falanga is no stranger to any violence and drug dealing hypotheses - the Nigerian was not beaten in his presence, it was a braggart from Montella to say that they had beaten him to death, in reality he fell during the chase". However, the lawyer cannot deny Falanga's participation in the arrests. "He participated in the operations when they were planned but did not know what was upstream." In short, he would have noticed nothing.  

Salvatore Cappellano , one of the police officers on duty until Wednesday in service at the Piacenza Levante station, made use of the right not to answer during the guarantee questioning today in prison in Piacenza, according to what has been learned. Chaplain is defended by the lawyer Talita Zilli. The other three carabinieri heard between yesterday and today inside the penitentiary instead collaborated by answering questions from the investigating magistrate and prosecutor.

Giuseppe Montella , the police officer at the center of the investigation by the Piacenza prosecutor's office, is "very tried" and "I really believe" that he will answer the investigating judge's questions. This was stated by his lawyer, Emanuele Solari, arriving a short while ago at the "Le Novate" prison in Piacenza for questioning the guarantee of his client. According to the investigation, coordinated by the chief prosecutor of Piacenza Grazia Pradella with the substitutes Antonio Colonna and Matteo Centini, the carabinieri of the Piacenza Levante station since 2017 would have set up a round of illegal arrests, drug dealing, beatings and extortions both in economic purposes both to increase one's professional prestige. The pinned Montella, says the investigating judge in the ordinance, was convinced that he could maintain "any type of behavior, going above the law and every rule of civil coexistence". this is not the case, however, according to his lawyer, Emanuele Solari. 

The wiretapping
"I have to take a panetta (of hashish, ed) and I make the eggs. Fuck, we sell them immediately ... Each egg I sell for 100, 120 euros. I sell them with my eyes closed, what a show". Thus spoke, according to the interceptions reported in the investigation documents, the police officer Giuseppe Montella, the main investigated in the investigation by the Piacenza prosecutor who reconstructed how the soldiers on duty in the Levante barracks had set up a round of illegal arrests , drug dealing, beatings and extortion since 2017. "If I show him the eggs that goes crazy", continues Montella talking to Daniele Giardino, one of the pushers who ended up in prison on Wednesday, and referring to one of his gallops, "I tell him : 'I paid them dear, if you want them they are at tot' ".

The leaders of the Carabinieri of Piacenza have been eliminated
The general command of the Carabinieri has ordered the transfer of the leaders of the Arma to Piacenza after the investigation that brought several soldiers to prison: starting yesterday the provincial commander Stefano Savo left office, the commander of the operational department Marco Iannucci and the commander of the investigative team Giuseppe Pischedda. The three are not involved in the investigation at the moment, but the decision was made, underline the sources of the Arma, on the one hand for the peaceful and regular performance of the service activities and on the other to recover a relationship of trust between the citizens and the weapon.

Military prosecutor: "Life of the military must be checked"
"You have to check what is happening in the barracks, but also monitor the standard of living of the carabinieri. Check what they post on their social profiles. And protect those who decide to report". So in an interview with Corriere della Sera the military attorney general at the Court of Appeal of Rome, Marco De Paolis. "It is not a system" of impunity, "whoever says it wants to damage the institution. But those who speak of bad apples make a serious mistake. They are groups of criminals who, out of control, become a real outbreak capable of infecting the entire barracks ". "At the moment the reporting of offenses committed by other soldiers is considered contrary to ethics, also because the image of the department is damaged". The military prosecutors, he explains, "are full of anonymous people who often prove to be well founded. The time has come to foresee, at least for a certain period of time, whistleblowing also for the police, guaranteeing them protection if they decide to report corruption cases other offenses ".