FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Kalashnikovs without serial numbers and state-of-the-art ammunition from Russian state-owned factories arrive via Sicilian ports and Friulian border crossings into the hands of the Italian mafia...
There is a place hidden inside the false bottoms of trucks, in the docks and garages of the Italian suburbs, a place armed to the teeth: custom-made weapons arriving from the most active arms industry at the moment, Russia. The same weapons that are currently killing Ukrainians are used by Italian organized crime, exploiting the routes of Putin's ghost fleet and fueling the black market. No longer consumer products from the early 2000s, but newly manufactured materials, without serial numbers, straight from the factories.
"Weapons are not stored like they used to be. It's like shopping: you order what you need and it arrives immediately. Some weapons have to remain in storage; organizations keep them, they can't sell them," says a source familiar with the matter.
This is a crucial detail: it means that some of the material is not immediately released to criminal networks, but is accumulated as a strategic reserve, depending on the constraints of the supplier. Not just a market, but also a controlled storage, a dark practice that over the decades has become common practice among organized crime, as revealed by Europol's analyses of weapons and explosives, which describe how mafia networks store weapons in secret and move them according to order, and operational records show seizures of shared arsenals and weapons used on a rotational basis.
Catania, the laboratory of dirty war.
Among the crumbling buildings and the suburban streets of Catania, the news reveals the clearest connection between Putin's Russia and the Italian mafia. In March 2022, a few days after the invasion of Ukraine, police in the San Cristoforo neighborhood seized an arsenal belonging to the Nizza group of the Santapaola-Ercolano clan: nine guns, approximately nine hundred rounds of ammunition and, most importantly, two "Soviet-made" AK-47 Kalashnikovs in perfect condition. Not just old rusty iron, but also combat equipment in line with the standards of the ongoing war.
In Catania there are two places where the stocks are most abundant and where the warehouses are replenished with new parts. The places are actually hidden places in the neighborhoods of San Giovanni Galermo and Librino, suburban areas that become hubs for Russian weapons arriving by sea using the same drug routes. Here, according to our source, the weapons are not old Soviet AKs, but special forces rifles, assault rifles and even sniper rifles manufactured between 2010 and 2020. Another interesting detail concerns the lack of serial numbers on the weapons.
But what factory are we talking about? A state-owned factory, Russia’s largest, Imperatorskiy Tulsky Oruzheiny Zavod in Tula, founded by Peter I in 1712, Putin’s arms manufacturing company. And if a weapon leaves that facility anonymously, it is only by government order, as Europol confirmed in a 2023 analysis that the appearance on the market of “new, unmarked” weapons suggests “forms of para-state cooperation in fostering illicit trafficking.” The UNODC itself, in its report on small arms trafficking, issued a warning: “The availability of military stockpiles in the Ukrainian theater poses a concrete risk of diversion to European criminal markets, with particular exposure to Southern European countries.”
If these accounts are combined, the interpretation becomes simple: some weapons enter criminal networks and are used or resold, others remain in controlled warehouses, as if they should be available for needs that go beyond the mafia and touch on geopolitical dimensions.
The Phantom Fleet and the Sicilian Ports.
Russia, as previously reported in the newspaper Linkiesta, operates a ghost fleet of cargo ships flying flags of convenience, used to evade sanctions and transport oil. However, some of these ships may also be used to transport small arms shipments.
"It is plausible that shipments officially destined for third countries are partially unloaded at secondary ports in the central Mediterranean," the Estonian intelligence document states.
In Sicily, suspicious moorings have been reported between Augusta and Pozzallo, precisely in the weeks when new cargo analyses were spreading in Catania, among organized crime circles. The weapons arrive in barrels of oil, fuel or lubricant. This is done both to avoid controls and to better preserve the weapons by preventing oxidation.
Friuli Venezia Giulia, Eastern Border.
The opposing front is Friuli Venezia Giulia, a historic gateway for trafficking from the East. Between Gorizia and Trieste, border police have repeatedly seized ex-Yugoslav and Soviet weapons hidden in trucks and cars. According to a report by Transcrime, Italy's northeastern border is a favorite entry point for small batches of weapons, often hidden in false bottoms of vehicles and destined for organized criminal groups.
Here, the source claims, weapons are only kept for a few hours, partly because there are many military personnel in those parts and surveillance is heightened. But as a backup, there are many drone components and other items being sent east through criminal channels.
These stories of hidden weapons, illegal trafficking, and exchanges of favors between clans reveal once again the strong connection between the Russian regime and transnational organized crime, a connection that is evident in many aspects of the Kremlin's hidden economy./ Adapted from "Pamphlet" by " Linkiesta "
Lini një Përgjigje