A man police link to the Montreal mafia, Michele Annunziata, is currently being held in a prison in Italy following his arrest for allegedly importing more than a ton of marijuana into that country.
Annunziata, 79, was arrested around ten days ago along with 15 other people following a major investigation carried out by the Carabinieri of the Campania region and the Salerno Departmental Anti-Mafia Directorate against the Calabrian mafia and Neapolitan.
“At the end of April 2023, a shipment of marijuana with a total weight of more than one ton was intercepted and seized from a container that left the Canadian port of Montreal and arrived at the port of Salerno by intermediary of an import-export company in Poggiomarino (Naples). According to the accusatory hypothesis (…), Antonio di Boscoreale Malafronte, co-owner of the company interested in importing the cargo, as well as the Italian-American Michele Annunziata would be involved. The latter would have organized the importation of the drug, financed in part by the Neapolitan Giuseppe Gargiulo,” we can read in a press release published on April 30 by the Special Operational Group of the Anti-Crime Section of the Carabinieri of Salerno.
According to Italian media, the marijuana was hidden in a legally acquired shipment of chickpeas.
The statement also said that the carabinieri found in March 2023 a shipment of 220 kilograms of cocaine that had been hidden in a container coming from Ecuador and taken on board a Lebanese-flagged ship.
Still according to the carabinieri, the port of Salerno has become a national hub for the importation of drugs from South America.
Italian media reports that for the recovery of drugs in the port of Salerno, traffickers received a sum of 10 to 20% of the value of the narcotics.
The alleged sponsor of the marijuana importation, Giuseppe Gargiulo, was placed under house arrest.
A discreet clan
According to police intelligence and our sources, the Annunziata clan is very discreet, but has been present for decades in Montreal, and operates in isolation.
Its headquarters is a café located on Boulevard Robert in Saint-Léonard which was also the stronghold of Agostino Cuntrera, an associate of the Rizzuto clan assassinated during the putsch attempted against the Sicilians in 2010-2011.
In the early 2000s, the Annunziata clan was considered by police to be one of six Montreal mafia families that reported to Cuntrera.
According to police and criminal sources, Michele Annunziata is close to Salvatore Cazzetta, members of the Hells Angels of the South section.
In February 1989, Annunziata was sentenced to 30 months in prison after he and accomplices were trapped by a double agent from the Montreal Urban Community Police Department in a transaction for two kilograms of cocaine – at the cost of $70,000 – carried out in a building on rue Jean-Talon.
In 1996, he was sentenced to six and a half years in penitentiary for a case of conspiracy and possession of explosives, and in 1976, to a $2,400 fine in a case of theft and possession of property obtained by crime.
To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.
reference: www.lapresse.ca