Aim. Shotguns, machine gun and carbine, the weapons of drug traffickers on loan for robberies in the Venetian area
MESTRE – The weapons came from two channels: on the one hand they were accepted as bargaining chips for drugs, on the other they relied on suppliers from Eastern Europe. The result is that the criminal group headed, according to the carabinieri of the Venice investigative unit and the prosecutor Andrea Petroni, the 42-year-old from Noale Joseph Hopehe had amassed a veritable arsenal: common firearms, clandestine weapons, warfare, including a machine gun with rounds and magazine, two packs of explosives with fuse and detonator, a carbine, a shotgun and tons of ammunition. The military had discovered them almost by accident at Diego Simion’s house in Mira: there, in fact, the carabinieri were looking for cocaine that came, precisely, from Speranza. In the wardrobes and drawers, on the other hand, they found themselves dealing with Beretta, Colt, Zastava and Smith&Wesson.
THE RECONSTRUCTION
According to the reconstruction of the investigators, the weapons belonged to Speranza and Simion had the task of guarding them. What were they for? According to the military, it is possible that they were used for robberies, rented (also) to other criminals more or less close to the group for various reasons. One, in particular, the coup that according to the carabinieri could explain the connection to the arsenal: the 2013 attempted robbery of the La Fornace pizzeria in Martellago (in which Speranza himself was asked to be indicted). Witnesses and collaborators of justice confirmed, at the time, that it was precisely the 42-year-old from Noale who supplied the weapons for the assault. Another robber, interrogated in 2020, told investigators that he had obtained the weapon used (a clandestine 765) precisely from Speranza. That’s not all: a collaborator of justice involved in the case of the Casalesi of Eraclea, told the investigators in 2020 that “Speranza told me that he needed weapons because he needed a person to rob a bank together and wanted me to give support with two material executors».
ORGANIZED CRIME
In this regard, the link with the Casalesi family returns. Speranza, the investigators reconstructed, is related by blood to organized crime: his father, Salvatore Speranza, O sergeant, belonged to the Mallardo di Giugliano clan and to the then Casalesi of Francesco Schiavone (known as Sandokan). Relations with his father, in reality, are no longer so frequent, also because Salvatore has become a collaborator with justice. Another member of the gang, the 51-year-old Ciro Pinto (Don Ciro), despite not having direct ties to organized crime, knew the Camorra environment quite well: his brother Gaetano was part of the Ascione-Papale clan and had been murdered in 2007 in the conflict between the Ascione and Birra families.