From the blocked posidonia in Selinunte to the bribes: the contract that reveals the mafia of Castelvetrano

To many, the circumstance had gone unnoticed, but not to the agents of the Trapani Mobile Squad who have never turned off the spotlight on Castelvetrano, where, after the capture of the fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro in January 2023, and his death in the following month of September, for some, the mafia events had been filed away. Instead, the clan would not cease to be operational.

The case of the posidonia that regularly accumulates and blocks the Selinunte harbor would become one of those businesses between the mafia, entrepreneurs, and public officials. This chapter is also included in the measure that overwhelms the powerful manager of Sicilian healthcare, and former deputy Salvatore Iacolino, but also the powerful manager of the regional department of Infrastructure and former head of the Civil Engineering of Trapani, Giancarlo Teresi. Arrested for a bribe of 20 thousand euros.

Teresi is on trial in Marsala for another corruption case, but this has not prevented him from advancing his career and settling into one of the most important offices of the Department of Infrastructure, the one that deals with public housing.

The investigation coordinated by prosecutor De Lucia and pm Gianluca De Leo, developed by the Trapani Mobile Squad, touches on the contract for the disposal of posidonia in Selinunte. Inside the construction site, the police had already noticed two notorious mafiosi, Carmelo Vetro, from Agrigento, boss of Favara, and Giovanni Filardo, who had recently been released, cousin of Matteo Messina Denaro, caught up in investigations on Cosa Nostra, infiltration in businesses, and fictitious registrations and financial support for the mafia boss's fugitive status. His name also came up in the accounts of another cousin of the Castelvetrano boss, Lorenzo Cimarosa.

Filardo was investigated in 2010 in the police investigation “Golem”. Vetro and Filardo were often, daily, inside the Technological Pole of Castelvetrano, where large quantities of posidonia were disposed of. It was Filardo who took the seaweed collected in the Selinunte harbor to the landfill, working without his name appearing among the involved companies, using an excavator owned by his brother, Matteo Filardo, which remained in operation despite a prohibition. Yet he managed to pocket the money obtained thanks to a variation to the contract.

Contractor Giovanni Aveni (An.Sa ambiente srl), he would have given the keys of the plant to the two entrepreneurs. Presence remained unnoticed by Project Manager Francesco Mangiapane, and by the manager Giancarlo Teresi. For them, the bribes paid by Aveni, twenty thousand euros to Teresi, ten thousand to Mangiapane.