THE DIA CONFISCATES ASSETS WORTH 100 MILLION EUROS AND DISMANTLES A BUSINESS EMPIRE OF THE CATANIA-BASED CLAN SANTAPAOLA ERCOLANO

The Direzione Investigativa Antimafia is carrying out an order issued by the Court of Catania – Section Preventive Measures, enforcing the confiscation of a wide-spread network of companies and huge assets of  PARATORE Antonino, father, and PARATORE Carmelo, son.

The two are the heads of one of the most important business groups in eastern Sicily, operating in a variety of sectors, but mainly in waste management and disposal. Over the years the two have succeeded in creating a veritable business galaxy, diversifying the family’s activities with companies active in hospital cleaning services, real estate, and the management of a well-known bathing establishment, located on the Catania coast.

The painstaking investigation was launched in 2020 by the D.I.A.-in perfect agreement with the District Prosecutor’s Office of Catania. The investigation examined the economic, financial and asset-related position of the aforementioned entrepreneurs, who had already been targeted by criminal investigations coordinated by the Catania Prosecutor’s Office, following which they had been arrested in the operation called “Pyramids.”

The Court of Catania – Section Preventive Measures – with the confiscation order recognized the ongoing synallagmatic relationship for several decades between the two aforementioned PARATOREs and the life-imprisoned boss ZUCCARO Maurizio. The latter is now detained at the Opera prison in Milan and is a historical member of the Santapaola-Ercolano clan, having already been convicted for the murder of ILARDO Luigi known as “fonte Oriente” killed in Catania in 1996.

The strong ties between the aforementioned, which have been proven in court documents, also clearly emerges from the PARATOREs’ presence at the baptism of boss ZUCCARO’s daughter as well as at the wedding of the latter’s eldest son, who was also convicted for mafia-related crimes.

The judges acknowledged – in line with the investigation conducted by the D.I.A. – that it was precisely this close proximity that was the origin of the impressive entrepreneurial escalation of PARATORE Antonino and his son Carmelo.

The investigations carried out by the D.I.A. have, in fact, closely examined as much as 40 years of their economic and entrepreneurial evolution. From a humble carpenter PARATORE Antonino became one of Sicily’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.

The complex asset-based investigations, coordinated by the Anti-Mafia District Directorate of Catania, have revealed that the entrepreneurial rise of the aforementioned family had a formidable upsurge around the end of the 1990s and that the investments made in those years are characterized by massive capital entries not justified by economic-financial capacity. The judges of the Court – Section of Prevention Measures – established that the money flows came from the illicit activity of boss ZUCCARO Maurizio.

The evidential framework presented to the Judicial Authority, now fully shared and referred to in the confiscation decree – is the result of a meticulous investigation, which also highlighted, among other things, the perfect time correlation between the entrepreneurial growth of the enterprises and the top role effectively assumed by ZUCCARO Maurizio within the Santapaola-Ercolano clan.

The confiscation order targets assets comprising 14 corporations (operating mainly in the areas of waste collection and treatment, management of bathing establishments, purchase, management and sale of real estate), as well as 8 buildings and a variety of financial accounts, which as of today are under state control, with a total value estimated at more than 100 million euros.

The Court of Catania – Section of Preventive Measures – also imposed on PARATORE Antonino and his son Carmelo, the measure of police special surveillance with obligation to stay in the municipality of residence, for the term of three years.

Catania,  21 August 2024