Mala del Brenta
Encyclopedia
The Mala del Brenta is a criminal organisation based in the Veneto
, north-eastern Italy
.
The criminal organization's structure is believed to be based upon some elements of the Cosa Nostra and Camorra
model. It is considered by the Italian government and Prefecture of Venice as including all the characteristics of Article 416 bis-cp,http://www.iurisfacile.org/index.php?op=news&c=&a=35 the legislative definition of a mafia-type organisation with Mafia (Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta, Camorra
) affiliations within Italy.http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_333.html It has been referred to by several different names including: Mafia
del Brenta
, Malavita del Brenta
, Mala or Mafia
del Piovese.
The most notable Sicilian mafiosi included: Salvatore Contorno
, Gaetano Fidanzati, Antonino Duca and Gaetano
and Salvatore Badalamenti, and Giuseppe Madonia.http://www.omicronweb.it/percorsi/Mafia%20al%20nord/mafia_veneto.html Veneti malavitosi, or underworld figures and bandits from the Veneto, learned from these Sicilians the necessary means for organising themselves and taking the reins of control from the successive two decades. What started as a small gang of criminals controlling racketeering along the Riviera del Brenta
between Padua
and Venice
, became an international syndicate under the "boss" Felice Maniero
.
These organizations included:
, in the mainland province of Venice started his own crew of local gangsters, composed of family members and childhood friends that would later hold the reins of his criminal empire.
While becoming a major criminal presence in the area, he was befriended by a number of prominent Sicilian mafiosi who backed him up in his vision of uniting Veneto organised crime.
Maniero's establishment subsequently controlled all criminal ventures in the region, all other organised crime groups in the region had been subjugated by the group originating from Campolongo Maggiore and backed up by the Sicilians and also members of the Camorra. All except the exponents of the "Veneziani" clan, the Rizzi brothers, were feeling menaced by the mainland syndicates under Maniero, but the other "Veneziano" capo Millo, was a personal friend of Maniero, and preferred collaborating with "Angel Face" and his allies.
While dining at a restaurant, Millo was shot and killed on March 17, 1990 by the Rizzi brothers, a violent feud ensued, between the Mala del Brenta and the "Veneziani", after six months, the Rizzi brothers and an associate were treacherously muredered in an ambush diguised as a meeting to discuss peace terms, Maniero placed Giovanni Giada as head of the Mala del Brenta in the venetian lagoon. He was now in firm control of all Veneto
The organisation had a firm hold of nearly every criminal venture in the region, from money laundering to loansharking and extortion, but its major source of income was drug dealing; the group bought massive amount of cocaine directly from the Sicilian and Colombian Mafia, as well as heroin from Turkish drug baron Nvo Berisa, who helped a number of venetian mobsters in hiding in Turkey including Felice Maniero and Antonio Pandolfo, the group's second in command.
Its members are exclusively native to the Veneto
region, but with a number of associates operating in the region from Cosa Nostra, Camorra
and it is believed from the Ndrangheta as well. It is also known that Brenta mafiosi have colluded with Stidda
members on a number of occasions involving a number of fraudulent scams at a Maltese casino in 2002.
Maniero, faced with life imprisonment, turned informant, helping the Italian police dismantle the organisation he himself had created, contributing to the arrest of more than 400 of the mob's members, as well as a number of judges, policemen, and local Venetian businessmen that had aligned themselves with the organisation.
Although it has been revealed that Maniero continued a number of criminal activities and many of his former henchmen re-organised the Mala del Brenta to ensure survival, it is now called Nuova Mala del Brenta or Nuova Mafia Veneta and it still influences many criminal ventures in the region, ranging from robberies and bank heists to arms and drug trafficking.
In May 2005, Francesco Tonicello a member of the old Mala del Brenta, was arrested in London after having been on the run for a number of years as one of Italy's most wanted men. A master forger, he worked under 11 aliases and fenced priceless artworks, antiques and gold for Venetian godfather "Angel Face" Maniero, as well as participating in a brutal double homicide.
In April 2005, the carabinieri
kill Luigi Quatela a top member of the syndicate in Chiampo
, in the province of Vicenza
In August 2006, the massive "Ghost Dog" operation undergoes, Italian police arrest over 60 exponents of the criminal organization, including policemen on the group's payroll. After two years of investigation, and the precious reveletians of the turncoats Stefano Galletto and Giuseppe Pastore, police deal a severe blow to the organisation, arresting local gang leaders in the provinces of Venice, Padua, Vicenza and Verona, most notably Achille Pozzi, from Padua, and Giorgio Fontana from Vicenza, together with their respective henchmen.
In July 2007, the Carabinieri busted a criminal group composed of ex Mala del Brenta associates and nomad criminals from the province of Vicenza, they were trying to form a new group made up of the older elitè members of mala del Brenta who had escaped or finished prison sentences and Vicenza and Bassano criminals engaging in drug trade and robberies, the group had been responsible for five gangland killings in the last three months, but turncoat Maich Gabrielli helped dismantle the group after witnessing the murder of 26-year-old cousin Emanuele Crovi.
In August 2007, a seventeen year old Tunisian boy was kidnapped as a result of hostilities between immigrant drug dealers.
Beaten and held hostage for several days in Padua's periphery, his kidnappers were two Albanians and an Italian slightly older than he was. When the Carabinieri came to liberate the hostage a gunfight ensued, with a Carabiniere remaining wounded, the juvenile criminals succeeded in escaping in a car whose number plates belonged to Lucio Calabresi, a capo of the Nuova Mala del Brenta, when the Carabinieri deepened their investigation into the incident, they uncovered a series of a new alliances between the syndicate and a number of immigrant youth gangs present in the city of Padua.
In October 2007, Italian police arrest Ercole Salvan, member of the syndicate, and one of the most feared bandits of the region, hailing from Cittadella (Padova), he had been on the run since the murder of a truck driver during a highway robbery.
In November 2007, a taskforce of about a hundred Italian and Spanish policemen, interrupt a steady flow of cocaine, from South America via Spain to North-Eastern Italy controlled by one of the organisations top members, the infamous Silvano Maritan, head of the San Donà di Piave cartel, already one of the head figures in the "old" mala del Brenta. After exiting prison in 2001, he took control of the drug trade in eastern veneto, supplying cocaine in a nuber of discos all along the venetian coastal resorts.
In May 2008, Italian investigators uncovered a plan to free bosses Lucio Calabresi and Mariano Magro from their prison in Vicenza. The man who intended to do this was Rafaele Vassallo, the plan was to subsequently murder a judge, two police captains, turncoat Stefano Galletto and his family and finally Felice Maniero in a series of terrorist attacks to be carried out with explosives and rocket launchers. A warehouse full of armaments was found in Padua's industrial area, and the would-be ideators of the plan were arrested.
In November 2008, the Carabinieri busted an unusual criminal join-venture made of former Far Right and Far Left terrorists, associates of the old Milan organized crime and Nuova Mala associates, above all Fiorenzo Trincanato, once one of Felice Maniero's enforcers. This group is believed to be involved with drug trafficking in the Northern Italy, controlling cocaine trade from Veneto to Liguria.
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
, north-eastern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
The criminal organization's structure is believed to be based upon some elements of the Cosa Nostra and Camorra
Camorra
The Camorra is a Mafia-type criminal organization, or secret society, originating in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating to the 18th century.-Background:...
model. It is considered by the Italian government and Prefecture of Venice as including all the characteristics of Article 416 bis-cp,http://www.iurisfacile.org/index.php?op=news&c=&a=35 the legislative definition of a mafia-type organisation with Mafia (Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta, Camorra
Camorra
The Camorra is a Mafia-type criminal organization, or secret society, originating in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating to the 18th century.-Background:...
) affiliations within Italy.http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_333.html It has been referred to by several different names including: Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
del Brenta
Brenta
Brenta may refer to:* Brenta , Italy* Brenta Valley* Brenta Group* Brenta, Lombardy...
, Malavita del Brenta
Brenta
Brenta may refer to:* Brenta , Italy* Brenta Valley* Brenta Group* Brenta, Lombardy...
, Mala or Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
del Piovese.
Origins
In the 1960s and 1970s a number of high ranking members of the Sicilian Mafia were sent in solitary confinement in various provincial towns in the Veneto, mostly around the cities of Vicenza, Padua and Venice, in an attempt to isolate powerful sicilian ringleaders from other members in the Mafia.The most notable Sicilian mafiosi included: Salvatore Contorno
Salvatore Contorno
Salvatore "Totuccio" Contorno is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who turned into a state witness against Cosa Nostra in October 1984, following the example of Tommaso Buscetta. He gave detailed accounts of the inner-workings of the Sicilian Mafia...
, Gaetano Fidanzati, Antonino Duca and Gaetano
Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Don Tano Badalamenti was the capofamiglia of his hometown Cinisi, Sicily, and headed the Sicilian Mafia Commission in the 1970s...
and Salvatore Badalamenti, and Giuseppe Madonia.http://www.omicronweb.it/percorsi/Mafia%20al%20nord/mafia_veneto.html Veneti malavitosi, or underworld figures and bandits from the Veneto, learned from these Sicilians the necessary means for organising themselves and taking the reins of control from the successive two decades. What started as a small gang of criminals controlling racketeering along the Riviera del Brenta
Riviera del Brenta
Riviera del Brenta is the coastline of the Naviglio del Brenta which runs from Padua and through the Veneto countryside, through Stra, Fiesso d'Artico, Dolo, Mira, Oriago and Malcontenta to Fusina , in the North-east of Italy.From 16th to 18th century many venetian aristocratic family built their...
between Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
and Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, became an international syndicate under the "boss" Felice Maniero
Felice Maniero
Felice Maniero is a former Italian crime boss who was the head of the Mala del Brenta, a criminal organisation based in the region of Veneto throughout the 1980s and 1990s. His nickname is Faccia d'Angelo , which he shares with the Milanese mobster Francis Turatello and Camorra boss Edoardo Contini...
.
Criminal panorama of Veneto
Before the arrival of these high-calibre sicilian mobsters, Veneto's crime problem was restricted to various disorganised gangs operating throughout the region. In the 1980s, just before the emergence of the Mala del Brenta there were already a few organized crime syndicates that would later be incorporated under the central authority of the Mala del Brenta.These organizations included:
- "Clan Giostrai". These were various affiliated groups of criminals from the province of Vicenza, of whom a number had a relation to the carnival fair businesses, and where involved in bank heists and robberies, drug trade and more notably kidnapping for ransom, around VicenzaVicenzaVicenza , a city in north-eastern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione...
and Bassano del GrappaBassano del GrappaBassano del Grappa is a city and comune in the province of Vicenza, region Veneto, in northern Italy. It bounds the communes of Cassola, Marostica, Solagna, Pove del Grappa, Romano d'Ezzelino, Campolongo sul Brenta, Conco, Rosà, Cartigliano and Nove...
under the leadership of the capo Giovanni Bernasconi. - The "Mestrini" group, based in MestreMestreMestre is a city part of the comune of Venice, in Veneto, northern Italy.The city is connected to Venice by a large rail and road bridge, called Ponte della Libertà ....
, on the immediate Venetian mainland, a powerful group with strong ties to the Mala del Brenta, their most lucrative trade was drug trafficking, but the group was involved in a vast array of criminal enterprises. Most notably the ownership of many abusive water taxis that would bring foreign tourists to shops and hotels in venice that were owned by the clans associates. The "zoccolo duro" or top capos of the organisation were: Gino Causin, Gilberto "Lolli" Boatto, Paolo Tenderini, Roberto "Paja" Paggiarin and Paolo Pattarello. - The "Veneziani", the old criminal underworld of Venice, engaged in the same activities of the "Mestrini", the group was headed by the Rizzi brothers and Giancarlo Millo, nicknamed "The Martian".
- The San Donà di PiaveSan Donà di PiaveSan Donà di Piave or, simply, San Donà, is the largest town in Eastern Veneto and comune of province of Venice, Veneto, in the North East region of Italy.- Geography :...
cartel, under the leadership of Silvano Maritan, nicknamed "The President", protegè of the confined Cosa Nostra boss Salvatore Contorno, the rivalry with another cartel based in the same area caused a number of violent confrontations and subsequently placed Maritan as capo of the eastern part of the province of Venice, that is until he gave up a percentage of his assets to Felice Maniero.
Growth of Maniero
Maniero born in the impoverished village of Campolongo MaggioreCampolongo Maggiore
Campolongo Maggiore is a town in the province of Venice, Veneto, Italy. It is northeast of SS516.Campolongo Maggiore is governed by a centre-left political party....
, in the mainland province of Venice started his own crew of local gangsters, composed of family members and childhood friends that would later hold the reins of his criminal empire.
While becoming a major criminal presence in the area, he was befriended by a number of prominent Sicilian mafiosi who backed him up in his vision of uniting Veneto organised crime.
Maniero's establishment subsequently controlled all criminal ventures in the region, all other organised crime groups in the region had been subjugated by the group originating from Campolongo Maggiore and backed up by the Sicilians and also members of the Camorra. All except the exponents of the "Veneziani" clan, the Rizzi brothers, were feeling menaced by the mainland syndicates under Maniero, but the other "Veneziano" capo Millo, was a personal friend of Maniero, and preferred collaborating with "Angel Face" and his allies.
While dining at a restaurant, Millo was shot and killed on March 17, 1990 by the Rizzi brothers, a violent feud ensued, between the Mala del Brenta and the "Veneziani", after six months, the Rizzi brothers and an associate were treacherously muredered in an ambush diguised as a meeting to discuss peace terms, Maniero placed Giovanni Giada as head of the Mala del Brenta in the venetian lagoon. He was now in firm control of all Veneto
Affiliations and criminal activity
The organisation has had a number of high-level political connections outside Italy (Croatia and Yugoslavia, Malta, Hungary and Austria). At one point, Maniero was a personal friend of the son of the former Croatian president Franjo Tuđman and was involved in the supply of guns to Croatia, in the early 1990s.The organisation had a firm hold of nearly every criminal venture in the region, from money laundering to loansharking and extortion, but its major source of income was drug dealing; the group bought massive amount of cocaine directly from the Sicilian and Colombian Mafia, as well as heroin from Turkish drug baron Nvo Berisa, who helped a number of venetian mobsters in hiding in Turkey including Felice Maniero and Antonio Pandolfo, the group's second in command.
Its members are exclusively native to the Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
region, but with a number of associates operating in the region from Cosa Nostra, Camorra
Camorra
The Camorra is a Mafia-type criminal organization, or secret society, originating in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating to the 18th century.-Background:...
and it is believed from the Ndrangheta as well. It is also known that Brenta mafiosi have colluded with Stidda
Stidda
La Stidda is a name for Mafia-type criminal organizations centered in Gela, Sicily, in Italy. Members are known as stiddari or stiddaroli. It is most active in the rural parts of southern Sicily and is partially a rival to Cosa Nostra...
members on a number of occasions involving a number of fraudulent scams at a Maltese casino in 2002.
Downfall
The organisation was thought to be dismantled in late 1994, due to revelations that the former boss Maniero was captured by a task force of 400 policemen issued with the sole task of bringing Maniero and his associates down. After being arrested in Turin in 1993 (having previously evaded the Padua and Vicenza prisons) together with many of the top members of the syndicate.Maniero, faced with life imprisonment, turned informant, helping the Italian police dismantle the organisation he himself had created, contributing to the arrest of more than 400 of the mob's members, as well as a number of judges, policemen, and local Venetian businessmen that had aligned themselves with the organisation.
Although it has been revealed that Maniero continued a number of criminal activities and many of his former henchmen re-organised the Mala del Brenta to ensure survival, it is now called Nuova Mala del Brenta or Nuova Mafia Veneta and it still influences many criminal ventures in the region, ranging from robberies and bank heists to arms and drug trafficking.
Recent years
In August 1996, the members of the re-instated gang, coordinated a spectacularly successful heist at the "Mirabilandia" theme park securing 350 billion lira in an attempt to get the group back on its feet after the revelations of Maniero and other turncoatsIn May 2005, Francesco Tonicello a member of the old Mala del Brenta, was arrested in London after having been on the run for a number of years as one of Italy's most wanted men. A master forger, he worked under 11 aliases and fenced priceless artworks, antiques and gold for Venetian godfather "Angel Face" Maniero, as well as participating in a brutal double homicide.
In April 2005, the carabinieri
Carabinieri
The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...
kill Luigi Quatela a top member of the syndicate in Chiampo
Chiampo
Chiampo is a town and comune in the province of Vicenza, Veneto, Italy. It is on SP43.-Sources:*...
, in the province of Vicenza
In August 2006, the massive "Ghost Dog" operation undergoes, Italian police arrest over 60 exponents of the criminal organization, including policemen on the group's payroll. After two years of investigation, and the precious reveletians of the turncoats Stefano Galletto and Giuseppe Pastore, police deal a severe blow to the organisation, arresting local gang leaders in the provinces of Venice, Padua, Vicenza and Verona, most notably Achille Pozzi, from Padua, and Giorgio Fontana from Vicenza, together with their respective henchmen.
In July 2007, the Carabinieri busted a criminal group composed of ex Mala del Brenta associates and nomad criminals from the province of Vicenza, they were trying to form a new group made up of the older elitè members of mala del Brenta who had escaped or finished prison sentences and Vicenza and Bassano criminals engaging in drug trade and robberies, the group had been responsible for five gangland killings in the last three months, but turncoat Maich Gabrielli helped dismantle the group after witnessing the murder of 26-year-old cousin Emanuele Crovi.
In August 2007, a seventeen year old Tunisian boy was kidnapped as a result of hostilities between immigrant drug dealers.
Beaten and held hostage for several days in Padua's periphery, his kidnappers were two Albanians and an Italian slightly older than he was. When the Carabinieri came to liberate the hostage a gunfight ensued, with a Carabiniere remaining wounded, the juvenile criminals succeeded in escaping in a car whose number plates belonged to Lucio Calabresi, a capo of the Nuova Mala del Brenta, when the Carabinieri deepened their investigation into the incident, they uncovered a series of a new alliances between the syndicate and a number of immigrant youth gangs present in the city of Padua.
In October 2007, Italian police arrest Ercole Salvan, member of the syndicate, and one of the most feared bandits of the region, hailing from Cittadella (Padova), he had been on the run since the murder of a truck driver during a highway robbery.
In November 2007, a taskforce of about a hundred Italian and Spanish policemen, interrupt a steady flow of cocaine, from South America via Spain to North-Eastern Italy controlled by one of the organisations top members, the infamous Silvano Maritan, head of the San Donà di Piave cartel, already one of the head figures in the "old" mala del Brenta. After exiting prison in 2001, he took control of the drug trade in eastern veneto, supplying cocaine in a nuber of discos all along the venetian coastal resorts.
In May 2008, Italian investigators uncovered a plan to free bosses Lucio Calabresi and Mariano Magro from their prison in Vicenza. The man who intended to do this was Rafaele Vassallo, the plan was to subsequently murder a judge, two police captains, turncoat Stefano Galletto and his family and finally Felice Maniero in a series of terrorist attacks to be carried out with explosives and rocket launchers. A warehouse full of armaments was found in Padua's industrial area, and the would-be ideators of the plan were arrested.
In November 2008, the Carabinieri busted an unusual criminal join-venture made of former Far Right and Far Left terrorists, associates of the old Milan organized crime and Nuova Mala associates, above all Fiorenzo Trincanato, once one of Felice Maniero's enforcers. This group is believed to be involved with drug trafficking in the Northern Italy, controlling cocaine trade from Veneto to Liguria.