Mala Del Brenta - Recent Years

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 turncoats

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.