Plundered bodies, threats and tomb violations: 9 arrests

Plundered bodies, threats and tomb violations: 9 arrests in the funeral home sector. The Carabinieri of the Provincial Command of Catania have carried out a precautionary custody order issued by the GIP of the Court of Caltagirone against 9 persons under investigation, for various reasons, for criminal association aimed at the commission of crimes of unlawful competition with threats or violence, sepulcher violations, aggravated thefts, disclosure and use of office secrets, threats, interruption of a public office or service, as well as threats to public officials and incitement to corruption. The investigations, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Caltagirone, made it possible to reveal the existence of a criminal group, attributable to a company active in the funeral home sector in the Caltagirone area, dedicated to the commission of continuous “sabotage” actions within of the mortuary chambers of the “Gravina e Santo Pietro” Hospital in Caltagirone towards competing companies, in order to grab the execution of the various funeral services. In particular, the associates, without having any scruple and physically guarding the aforementioned Caltagirone hospital, have become the protagonists of countless unauthorized entrances into the mortuary rooms, damaging / destroying the funeral furnishings of competing companies (advertising tickets, obituaries and crucifixes placed as ornaments were systematically hit), as well as tearing from the bodies ( on one occasion even from a fetus) the “identification tags” in order to be able to trace iare, before the other competitors, the relatives of the deceased to propose for funeral honors.The subjects arrested this morning by the Carabinieri of Catania are held responsible for being part of a criminal organization which, with threats and violence, eliminated the competition of other companies of the sector, to grab – at the Caltagirone Hospital – the performance of funeral services and the transport of non-ambulatory patients. , through some non-profit organizations related to them, managed to monopolize the transport activities of non-ambulatory patients by means of private ambulances. Criminal activities were carried out through a real “occupation” of the hospital, not hesitating to threaten death and attack, even physically, the health personnel who, at the beginning of the emergency resulting from the pandemic a da covid-19, had tried to remove them from the premises of the emergency room to enforce compliance with the rules on the prevention of infections