On the evening of March 24, an alarming phone call received at the Police Headquarters operations room triggered the intervention of several police officers in a house in the San Cristoforo district.
The report, in fact, spoke of eight children who had been left alone inside an apartment by a couple who were dealing drugs on the floor above. The police identified the house where the minors were supposed to be and, although they received no response when they knocked, they actually ascertained their presence in the house. Therefore, in order to ascertain their conditions, they requested the intervention of the Fire Brigade. to be able to access the inside of the apartment, but when the Fire Brigade arrived, the parents also arrived, probably alerted by some neighbour. Fortunately, the children were all found in good health and the house was in fair condition. The two parents were reported at liberty for the crime of child abandonment.
While they were engaged in this intervention, the policemen heard very loud noises of furniture being moved coming from the upper floor and a continuous flushing of a toilet and therefore, thinking back to the tenor of the report which spoke of drug dealing on the upper floor, the officers decided to check. On the landing, the operators noticed that the house was protected by a metal gate and surveillance cameras, then, taking advantage of the exit of two people, they snuck in, managing to enter the apartment, from which a loud noise also came smell of marijuana. Here they found it a real illegal gaming room with four perfectly functioning slot machines and inside which the sum of €2.200 in coins was recovered and seized. Furthermore, most of the 18 people who were there were criminals and drug users. Proceeding with the search, three monitors were found from which the images taken by the surveillance cameras could be seen and, inside a cabinet, material usually used for packaging the narcotic in doses; then, hidden in the bathroom, seven precision electronic scales were also found.
Everything was seized.
Considering that there was neither a bedroom nor a kitchen in the apartment, it immediately became clear that it was used as a base for gambling and drug dealing and consumption.. The 30-year-old criminal from Catania, to whom the place was found to be in use, was investigated in a state of freedom not only for the crime of gambling and drug dealing, but also for the theft of electricity, as ascertained by Enel technicians who intervened specifically after the initial checks carried out by the police.
Furthermore, inside the house there was a 36-year-old convicted felon, who had a ban on returning to the municipality of Catania which she had violated several times: she was therefore reported again. Other offenders were the recipients of other measures which required them not to leave their homes in the evening: for this reason, they were reported to the Judicial Authority.
