Mafia: Dia confiscates assets worth 100 million, dismantled Santapaola-Ercolano clan empire

The Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate executed a measure issued by the Court of Catania - Precautionary Measures Section, ordering the confiscation of the impressive company and asset complex of Antonio and Carmelo Paratore, father and son respectively. The two are at the head of one of the most important business groups in eastern Sicily, operating in various sectors, but mainly in waste management and disposal.

Over the years, father and son have managed to create a veritable galaxy of businesses, diversifying the family's activities with companies active in hospital cleaning services, real estate and the management of a well-known bathing establishment on the Catania coastline.

The investigation launched in 2020 by the Dia, in agreement with the Etna District Prosecutor's Office, examined the economic, financial and asset position of the entrepreneurs, who were already involved in criminal investigations coordinated by the Etna Prosecutor's Office, on the basis of which they had been arrested in the operation called 'Pyramids'.

With the confiscation order, the Court of Catania - Precautionary Measures Section recognised the synallagmatic relationship that had existed for several decades between the Paratore family and the life sentence boss Maurizio Zuccaro, currently detained at the Opera prison in Milan, a historical exponent of the Santapaola-Ercolano clan, already convicted for the murder of Luigi Ilardo known as 'Fonte Oriente', killed in Catania in 1996.

The strong ties between the suspects, proven in court documents, also emerges with certainty from the Paratore family's presence at the baptism of boss Zuccaro's daughter as well as at the wedding of the latter's eldest son, who was also convicted of mafia-related crimes. The judges recognised that such proximity was the origin of the impressive entrepreneurial escalation of Antonio and Carmelo Paratore. The investigations carried out by the Dia have, in fact, passed under the magnifying glass a good forty years of their economic and entrepreneurial evolution. From a humble carpenter, Antonio Paratore has become one of Sicily's wealthiest entrepreneurs.