Antonio Pelle
Encyclopedia
San Luca
San Luca is a comune in the Province of Reggio Calabria in the Italian region Calabria, located about 100 km southwest of Catanzaro and about 35 km east of Reggio Calabria. The town is situated on the eastern slopes of the Aspromonte mountain, in the valley of the Bonamico river...
in Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
. He was the patriarch of the San Luca locale and the 'Ndrangheta capo crimine, the titular head of the organisation, although with little effective power.
Criminal career
Ntoni Pelle was born as the fourth child in a very poor family in San Luca. As an illiterate shepherd he rambled the desolate AspromonteAspromonte
Aspromonte is a mountain massif in the province of Reggio Calabria . The name means "rough mountains", so named by the farmers who found its steep terrain and rocky soil difficult to cultivate. It overlooks the Strait of Messina, being limited by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas and by the Pietrace...
mountains around San Luca, Platì
Platì
Platì is a town and comune in the province of Reggio Calabria, in Calabria, southern Italy. It rises 300 metres above the sea level on the slope of the Aspromonte mountains and is located next to the Aspromonte National Park...
and Careri
Careri
Careri is a comune in the Province of Reggio Calabria in the Italian region Calabria, located about 90 km southwest of Catanzaro and about 40 km east of Reggio Calabria. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,427 and an area of 38.2 km².Careri borders the following...
. In 1957 he was charged with burglary, but released for insufficient proof. A year later he was shot in the leg and in 1959 he was again acquitted, this time for illegal possession of a firearm. In 1961, he was arrested for murder, attempted murder and criminal conspiracy. Released because of expiration of detention terms in 1970, the Court of Appeal sentenced him to 11 years, 11 months and 11 days a year later. Pelle became a fugitive until he was arrested in November 1977.
Pelle disappeared from the radar screen until 1989 when several indictments were issued against him. The indictments charged Pelle for kidnapping, money laundering and mafia conspiracy together with 49 others such as the high ranking 'Ndrangheta bosses Sebastiano Romeo
Sebastiano Romeo
Sebastiano Romeo , also known as U Staccu, was a historical 'Ndrangheta boss from San Luca in Calabria...
from San Luca, Giuseppe Morabito
Giuseppe Morabito
Giuseppe Morabito , nicknamed u tiradrittu , is an Italian criminal and a historical boss of the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia-type organisation in the region of Calabria . He hails from Africo in the Locride...
from Africo
Africo
Africo is a comune in the province of Reggio Calabria, in the Southern Italian region of Calabria at 74 km from Reggio Calabria.Africo consists of two main centers. The first, Africo Vecchio , is located some 15 km in the mainland at the feet of the Aspromonte. The old town was destroyed...
, Pasquale Barbaro and others. Several clans formed a single entity, known as the Anonima sequestri dell’Aspromonte, that had been responsible for a string of kidnappings in the 1980s. In the course of the investigations, police authorities calculated that Pelle had acquired some 1.5 billion lire (some € 750,000).
Moving into drug trafficking
Pelle was charged again in 1992 and 1993 for drug trafficking. The investigations revealed how Pelle and Giuseppe Morabito provided 340 million lire (some € 170,000) to Antonio Papalia to pay for drug consignments. The money from kidnappings was invested in drug trafficking by the 'Ndrangheta, which became the most important source for illegal revenue and replaced the kidnap business which attracted too much media and police attention. The 'Ndrangheta at the time made the decisive step to reform from an archaic organisation to a modern one involved in the drug business.According to several 'Ndrangheta turncoats (pentiti
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
) Pelle was a member of La Provincia, a provincial commission of the 'Ndrangheta, formed at the end of the Second 'Ndrangheta war in September 1991 to avoid further internal conflicts.
San Luca feud
The Pelle-Vottari-Romeo, is one of the protagonists in the San Luca feudSan Luca feud
The San Luca feud or Vendetta of San Luca is a long running conflict between two clans of the 'Ndrangheta—an Italian organized crime organisation—that began in 1991 in Italy's Calabria region in the village of San Luca....
against the Strangio-Nirta clan. The vendetta between two clans from San Luca reached the headlines of the world press when on August 15, 2007, six men belonging to the Pelle-Vottari-Romeo clan were shot dead in their cars in front of a pizzeria near the train station of Duisburg
Duisburg
- History :A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus holds that Duisburg, was built by the eponymous Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC...
in western Germany. Notwithstanding his non-involvement in the facts, he was indirectly involved through his son-in-law, Francesco Vottari
Francesco Vottari
Francesco Vottari , also known as Cicciu u Frunzu, is a boss of the 'Ndrangheta from San Luca in Calabria. He is the son of Giuseppe Vottari...
, one the protagonists among disputing clans.
Arrest and death
During his criminal career he was acquitted in nine out of ten trials. In the early years his lawyer was Giovanni LeoneGiovanni Leone
Giovanni Leone was an Italian politician. He was the 38th Prime Minister of Italy from 21 June 1963 to 4 December 1963 and again from 24 June 1968 to 12 December 1968. He also served as the sixth President of the Republic from 1971 to 1978.-Biography:...
before he became President of the Italian Republic
President of the Italian Republic
The President of the Italian Republic is the head of state of Italy and, as such, is intended to represent national unity and guarantee that Italian politics comply with the Constitution. The president's term of office lasts for seven years....
in 1971. He had been a fugitive and included on the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy since 2000. He faced a 26 year sentence for cocaine trafficking and mafia association. While in hiding, he allegedly found refuge somewhere in the desolate Aspromonte
Aspromonte
Aspromonte is a mountain massif in the province of Reggio Calabria . The name means "rough mountains", so named by the farmers who found its steep terrain and rocky soil difficult to cultivate. It overlooks the Strait of Messina, being limited by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas and by the Pietrace...
mountains.
His son Salvatore Pelle wanted since 1991, was arrested on March 10, 2007. During an operation in San Luca on March 4, 2008, the police discovered an underground bunker in one of the seized buildings which investigators believed was used as a hideout by Pelle.
He was arrested on June 12, 2009, in a hospital in Polistena
Polistena
Polistena is a comune in the Province of Reggio Calabria in the Italian region Calabria, located about 70 km southwest of Catanzaro and about 50 km northeast of Reggio Calabria...
(Calabria), recovering from a hernia
Hernia
A hernia is the protrusion of an organ or the fascia of an organ through the wall of the cavity that normally contains it. A hiatal hernia occurs when the stomach protrudes into the mediastinum through the esophageal opening in the diaphragm....
surgery. "It's all over, it's all over," he said to the police, who found him when they followed his wife visiting the hospital. He died from a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
in a hospital in Locri
Locri
Locri is a town and comune in the province of Reggio Calabria, Calabria, southern Italy. The name derives from the ancient Greek town Locris.-History:...
on November 4, 2009. According to investigators his nephew Sebastiano Pelle
Sebastiano Pelle
Sebastiano Pelle is an Italian criminal belonging to the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia-type organization in Calabria . He was on the "list of most wanted fugitives in Italy" of the ministry of the Interior, until his arrest on November 9, 2011, in Reggio Calabria.Pelle was born in San Luca, Calabria...
returned to San Luca to take over when his uncle died.