I am at least four people are under investigation in the Florence DDA investigation also accused with the aggravating circumstance of facilitating organized crime ininvestigation into cocaine trafficking from Ecuador and Colombia to Livorno and other European ports. Among the 30 precautionary measures carried out by the Pisa financial police – 23 in prison, six under house arrest, one signature obligation – emerge, in various capacities, in the accusation of criminal association for international drug trafficking also the aggravating circumstances of transnationality and mafia facilitation. The investigation by the Tuscan anti-mafia DDA into international drug trafficking was kicked off in 2021 by an inspection by the financial police in Calambrone, close to the port. The soldiers surprise a group of Albanians intent on unloading drugs from a container.
The role of the ‘ndrina Molè of Gioia Tauro
Then the investigations were corroborated by the revelations of a collaborator of justice, a Neapolitan who was part of the ‘ndrina Molè of Gioia Tauro (in the province of Reggio Calabria). Once arrested, he admitted to having participated, in 2022, on behalf of the gang, in two recovery operations foiled by the police, also indicating two Calabrian “financiers” of drug trafficking. During the investigations, over 2 tons of cocaine, 45 kilos of hashish, 20 kilos of marijuana were seized, which would have yielded around 70 million euros. The cocaine arrived from Colombia to the port of Livorno where “teams” specialized in recovering drugs from containers intervened, made up of Albanians, Romanians and Italians, who, according to the prosecution, were the representatives of the ‘ndrina Molè, a Calabrian gang of Gioia Tauro.
Coordinating the recoveries in the port of Livorno, a crucial hub of drug trafficking, according to what emerges from the investigations of the Pisa financial police, was a 44-year-old Albanian, Albert Turja – among those arrested in prison -, resident in Santa Croce sull’Arno (Pisa) and manager with his wife of a B&B in Florence, in via Martelli, next to the cathedral. In reality, according to the investigators, Turja was the organizer of the gang in Tuscany, through a “cryptophone” he maintained contact with the brokers in Ecuador, who financed the purchase of the drugs in Colombia. According to the prosecution, he also managed the importation and then the most delicate phase of the exit of the narcotic from the port of Livorno. To complete the operations, Turja had accomplices inside the Livorno port. The investigations continue.
