Carabinieri 'colluded with Camorra'

PHOTO CREDIT: FORZEARMATENEWS

NAPLES – Five allegedly corrupt Carabinieri paramilitary police officers were uncovered in an investigation by the anti-mafia unit in this southern port city and were placed under house arrest on Monday, according to judicial sources.

  The five have been charged on account of corruption, the omission of official documents and the disclosure of secrets. There are three other carabiniere who have also been implicated, but have not been placed under house arrest. They have been suspended from service for a year. 

  Allegations of their corruption date back to 2017, and granted immunity to the local camorra.  Some of the carabiniere are no longer in the service at Naples. The Naples prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, described the conduct of those implicated as “disloyal”, and said “the confidence in the Carabinieri had always been maximum and intact,” quoted Il Fatto Quotidiano. 

  The carabiniere are suspected of having colluded with Pasquale Puca, the leader of the Puca di Sant'Antimo clan who is already in jail. Apart from receiving champagne, televisions and 1000 euros per month, they were also accused of using their connections to buy low-cost housing in areas that should not have been available to them, and would then sell these houses with high markups, reports Il Mattino.

  These allegations date back to 2017. Carabiniere Marshal Giuseppe Membrino was one of those who issued numerous complaints against the allegedly corrupt carabiniere, and was threatened by the Puca clan who used intimidation tactics such as stalking and filming him to stop his regular complaints. Membrino had to leave Sant’Antimo station in 2009 after he was attacked with a bomb under his car, according to Il Mattino.

  Another issued with a warrant of house-arrest was the former chair of the Sant'Antimo town council, Francesco Di Lorenzo. Lorezeno said of Membrino that – “He was a decent person, he never bent.”

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