Mob boss Daniel Kinahan has been left reeling as his mafioso pal has turned State witness in Italy.
Raffaele Imperiale, a notorious member of the infamous Camorra, who was at Kinahan’s 2017 wedding in Dubai, is now telling the authorities all he knows, according to reports. The infamous crime boss, who was extradited from the UAE back to Italy to serve a sentence for drug trafficking, has now made an offer to switch sides.
According to Italian media he has promised to tell the Neapolitan Anti-Mafia magistrates everything he knows from over twenty years as part of the Neapolitan Camorra. That decision could have major implications for Kinahan, who was pals with and formed part of a so-called ‘super cartel’ with Imperiale.
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Imperiale’s decision to cooperate took place in October when he was arrested in his prison cell as part of an anti-mafia operation. According to reports he has made statements against at least two co-defendants - in an unprecedented move.
The mobster, who was number two on Italy’s most wanted list, has reportedly assured authorities that he is ready to turn his life around and cooperate with them. Gardai will be hopeful that Imperiale may have information that could assist in its ongoing investigations into Kinahan.
Kinahan is also the target of a major DEA and US Treasury Department Investigation - of which there is a $5M reward for information that could lead to his prosecution. Imperiale’s statements come after he was brought back to Italy following the intervention of the Italian Justice Minister, who personally flew to the United Arab Emirates to request the high-ranking Camorra member’s extradition - following his arrest on August 9, last year.
Nicknamed ‘Lelluccio’, Imperiale attended Kinahan’s wedding at the plush Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai in 2017 - according to the DEA. He is believed to be one of the leaders of a so-called ‘super cartel’ in Europe, of which Kinahan is a member.
Imperiale had been wanted by Italian authorities since 2016 to serve an eight-year sentence for drug trafficking. His extradition to Italy after six months is a reminder to Kinahan that criminals living in the bolthole are not free from justice in Europe - and it may signal future trouble for him.
Imperiale’s dramatic arrest made international headlines last year when police released video footage of the moment they moved on him by a swimming pool in his luxury villa - and found him with a Russian passport. The extradition application for the mobster stated that he was a member of Europe’s so-called ‘Super Cartel’ along with Kinahan, Balkan mob boss Edin Gacanin and the caged Dutch mafia head Ridouan Taghi.
Prosecutors also claim Imperiale has ties with the leaders of Holland’s notorious ‘Mocro Maffia’, led by Ridouan Taghi. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) documents sent to Dutch police identified Imperiale, Dutch mobster Taghi, Bosnian criminal Edin Gačanin, Richard ‘El Rico’ Riquelme Vega and Daniel Kinahan as the heads of the ‘super drug cartel’.
The alleged gang boss was arrested after a massive investigation involving Naples’s organised crime squad, public prosecutor’s office, financial crimes police, and other state authorities. The DEA documents described the ‘super drugs cartel’ as one of the world’s fifty largest drug cartels, with a virtual monopoly of the Peruvian cocaine trade.
The documents said the ‘super drugs cartel’ controlled around a third of the cocaine trade into Europe – with the main point of access through Dutch ports. In March of last year further evidence emerged of the links between the Kinahan cartel and Imperiale at the trial of Richard ‘El Rico’ Riquelme Vega in Amsterdam.
In June, Riquelme was sentenced to 11 years in prison after being found guilty of operating an assassination ring and laundering drug money. His trial heard he had exchanged phone messages organising gangland murders with jailed drug boss Taghi.
Imperiale’s time on the run is now over and gardai believe Kinahan will soon suffer the same fate. Italian cops previously said Raffaele was one of the country’s most dangerous mafiosi.
“He was able to construct an imposing network of international drug trafficking, in particular in cocaine,’’ the police said. According to Italian investigators, Imperiale started as an “international broker” in the drug trade in the early 2000s, with his ties to powerful Camorra clans surviving various feuds among Naples mobsters.
In 2016, two Van Gogh works, stolen in 2002 from an Amsterdam museum, were found stashed in a farmhouse on property owned by Imperiale in the Naples-area town of his birth, Castellamare di Stabia.
The 1882 View of the Sea at Scheveningen and a 1884-1885 work, Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, had been stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Imperiale left Italy for Amsterdam in the 1990s to manage a coffee shop, and soon got into the drugs trade.
After first dealing in ecstasy tablets, he turned to cocaine dealing, moving tons of drugs into Holland for the European market with the help of South American traffickers, while at the same time operating restaurants and investment companies.
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