Catania Mafia, over 100 million in assets confiscated: the DIA dismantles the Santapaola-Ercolano clan by targeting the Paratores
The business empire of the Catania clan of Santapaola-Ercolano was dismantled by the GodAnti-Mafia Investigation Directorate, by order of the Court of Catania. After an investigation launched in 2020, the agents managed to achieve an important goal: the confiscation of 100 million euros in corporate and patrimonial assets owned by Antonio and Carmelo Paratorefather and son close to the boss lifer Maurizio Zuccarocurrently detained in the Opera prison in Milan and a historical member of the Santapaola-Ercolano clan, as well as the murderer of Luigi Ilardo, a well-known “Oriente source” killed in Catania in 1996.
The investigations and the Paratore empire
For four yearsthe DIA, together with the Etna District Attorney’s Office, examined the economic, financial and patrimonial position of the Paratore entrepreneurs, already involved in criminal investigations after which they were arrested during the operation called “Pyramids”. Antonio and Carmelo created an empire from scratch starting from the nineties, until becoming heads of one of the most important business groups in eastern Sicilyoperating in various sectors, but mainly in the management and in the waste disposal. Over the years, father and son have managed to create a veritable galaxy of businesses, diversifying the family’s activities with companies active in hospital cleaning services, in the real estate sector and in the management of a very well-known beach resort, located on the Catania coast.
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The relationship with the boss Zuccaro
The asset investigations conducted by the DIA have shown how, since the 1990s, funds have been placed in the Paratore accounts large amounts of unjustified capital from the economic-financial capacity, but flows of money coming from theIllicit activity of the boss Maurizio Zuccaro. The evidentiary framework presented to the Judicial Authority, today fully shared and recalled in the confiscation decree, is the result of meticulous investigative work, which has also brought to light the perfect temporal correlation between the entrepreneurial growth of the companies and the leading role effectively assumed by Zuccaro within the Santapaola-Ercolano clan.
In fact, it was precisely in those years that the Paratores and Zuccaros began to see each other. Paratores were present at the daughter’s baptism of the boss Zuccaro, as well as to firstborn’s marriage of the latter, also convicted of mafia crimes. The Judges recognized that it was precisely this closeness that was the origin of the impressive entrepreneurial escalation of Antonio and Carmelo Paratore. The investigations carried out by the DIA have, in fact, put under the magnifying glass a good forty years of their economic evolution and entrepreneurial. From a humble carpenterAntonio Paratore has become one of the most wealthy entrepreneurs Sicilians.
The confiscated assets
The confiscation order concerns assets with an estimated value of over 100 million eurosIt consists of 14 joint stock companies (operating mainly in the sectors of waste collection and treatment, in the management of beach resorts, in the purchase, management and sale of real estate), and in eight buildings and in various financial relationships. In addition to the confiscation, the Court of Catania (Preventive Measures Section) has ordered the father and son to be subjected to the measure of special surveillance of public safety with residence requirement in the municipality of residence, for the duration of three years.
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