The accusation is serious: “Having been constantly at the disposal of Cosa Nostra”. The latest investigation by the prosecutor’s office directed by Maurizio de Lucia and the police takes a well-known politician in Palermo to prison, Mimmo Russo, ras of social cooperatives, municipal councilor for twenty years, after various transfers he landed in Fratelli d’Italia in 2017. The statements of some justice collaborators and above all the wiretaps say that since 2007 he has made “electoral alliances with top mafiosi”. Even in the last electoral campaign for the administrative offices, in 2022, in which however he was not elected. In exchange for votes, he would offer jobs, sums of money, food and petrol vouchers. “Not occasional episodes – is the accusation – but a modus operandi that the politician has constantly implemented over time”. And again, writes the pool coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Marzia Sabella: “he had the power to sit at the same table as the mafiosi, without being intimidated by them and actually acting on a contractually equal footing”. Now, Russo is accused of external complicity in association, mafia-political electoral exchange, corruption, illicit influence trafficking and even extortion.
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The investigation conducted by the Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit, coordinated by the district anti-mafia directorate, also triggered two other precautionary measures, they went under house arrest Gregorio Marchese e Achilles Andò. The first is the son of a historic Palermo mafia boss, called Filippo Marchese milincianakilled by Totò Riina at the beginning of the Eighties: officially he was a real estate agent after being acquitted of the charge of mafia association, Mimmo Russo had included him in the management of “Sipet srl”, which took over the management of the racecourse after the dissolution of the previous company due to mafia infiltration signed by the then prefect Antonella De Miro. Gregorio Marchese is accused of extortion aggravated by the mafia method, because on behalf of the CEO of Sipet, Massimo Pinzauti he would have rudely kicked out some of the company’s collaborators. For one episode, Mimmo Russo was also accused of extortion.
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Achilles Andò he is instead a Freemason fixer, registered with the Grand Orient of Italy: the prosecutor accuses him of the crime of corruption, for having colluded with Mimmo Russo, at the time in which he was president of the Urban Planning commission of the city council, for the creation of a center commercial next to the Forum. All these stories are linked by the frantic search for vote packages implemented by Mimmo Russo. He asked everyone for votes. Meanwhile, the prosecutor claims, he continued to have relationships with mafia members of various families.
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– 2024-04-10 05:05:41
