Teresi, the regional executive arrested: from glasses to photograph the "cops" to connections with the cousins of Matteo Messina Denaro

A career at the peak of regional administration, immense decision-making power over the island's strategic infrastructures, and a fatal inclination - according to prosecutors - for corrupt agreements. Giancarlo Teresi, a 66-year-old from Palermo, was not just any bureaucrat. As the top official in charge of the 6th Service (Maritime and Port Infrastructures) of the Department of Infrastructures of the Sicilian Region, he managed the fate of million-euro public contracts, often holding the delicate roles of Single Project Manager (RUP) and Safety Coordinator during Execution (CSE). Today, his figure is at the center of a judicial storm that uncovers a well-oiled system of bribes, favoritism, and dangerous connections with top figures of Cosa Nostra.

The 2020 Corruption Investigation 

And to think that Teresi was not exactly unknown to the judicial chronicles: he had remained in office and held a top role within the regional administration despite being heavily involved in a corruption investigation from March 2020. Teresi was the chief engineer of the Civil Engineering Office of Trapani and was accused of corruption in relation to his dealings with entrepreneur Giuseppe Micali concerning the awarding of dredging work at the port of Mazara del Vallo, worth over one million euros: in collusion with two other entrepreneurs, according to the accusation, Teresi, responsible for the work, allegedly received money from Micali for the purchase of a vintage Alfa Romeo, as well as a free stay at a hotel in Messina and a dinner for himself and five other people at a well-known restaurant in Milazzo, all to secure his involvement in the final awarding procedure for the dredging of the port-channel. Teresi was also at the center of another alleged corruption case with Micali, in the matter of the direct assignment of work at the Sant'Orsola City Market in Messina through a municipal official, also in this case, according to prosecutors, in exchange for money.

The Pact with the Devil: The Links with Vetro and the Cousins of Messina Denaro

According to today's serious indictment, Teresi systematically subordinated his public function to the private interests of criminal entrepreneurs. His main "protected" individual was Carmelo Vetro, a person already convicted for mafia association and linked to the Favara family. Despite knowing his criminal background and the pending anti-mafia prohibitions, Teresi - according to the prosecution's hypothesis - acted as his covert "sponsor," allowing the company An.Sa. Ambiente s.r.l. (managed by Vetro through a frontman) to infiltrate the lucrative contracts for the removal of port waste.

But the infiltration did not stop there. Teresi actively favored - according to what the Palermo prosecutors claim - the brothers Giovanni and Matteo Filardo, first-degree cousins of the Trapani boss Matteo Messina Denaro. At the construction site of the Polo Tecnologico di Castelvetrano, the manager deliberately omitted the necessary anti-mafia checks, turning a blind eye to the employment of the company M.I.R.E. s.r.l.s., which was linked to the Filardo family, despite it already being subject to an interdiction from the Prefecture of Trapani.

He even illegitimately authorized the access to the construction site of Giovanni Filardo, already sentenced to 12 years for mafia, who acted as a true "supervisor." To ensure that the boss's cousins received a payment of 21,870 euros for the work performed, Teresi - the prosecutors say - falsified documents, approved inflated Work Progress Reports (SAL), and accepted false invoices issued by a "front" company.

Bribes, yellow folders, and Christmas Eve

Teresi's modus operandi for collecting bribes was unscrupulous. The kickbacks were handed over directly in his Palermo office: Vetro quickly slipped cash envelopes into a "yellow folder" or a black backpack prepared by the manager. The cases documented by the investigators form a long list.

For the Port of Marinella di Selinunte Teresi imposed the hiring of the Vetro company to the winning bidder of the contract, creating fictitious variations to cover the costs and receiving in return 1,500 euros in cash. For Scicli (Port of Donnalucata and Spinasanta) he would have circumvented the public tender rules by exploiting the threshold for direct assignment (under 140,000 euros) to assign environmental monitoring to AN.SA. AMBIENTE. To close the matter quickly, Teresi even worked on Christmas Eve using his personal email. The price of this operation? 8,000 euros in two installments.

For the Technological Pole of Castelvetrano in addition to favoring the Filardo family, Teresi - this is still the accusatory hypothesis - demanded and obtained 30,000 euros from entrepreneur Giovanni Aveni to "fix the paperwork" and increase profits. An interception caught him whispering the request for 20,000 euros for urgent "condominium debts".

For the Port of Terrasini he recommended the Vetro company to COMAR Costruzioni, defending the mobster even in contractual disputes.

Counter-espionage by the bureaucrat with spy glasses

The perhaps most disturbing detail of the entire investigation concerns the investigative attention and counter-espionage techniques adopted by the official. On August 20, 2025, during a meeting for the delivery of a bribe, Teresi notices the presence of an undercover police officer. Without losing his composure, he warns Vetro ("this cop is definitely") and pulls out an unsuspected technological weapon: a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses equipped with a built-in microcamera. Positioning himself in front of the officer, Teresi secretly photographs him. An action that left even Vetro astonished, intercepted while telling his brother-in-law: "the bastard has those Rayban glasses [...] damn he got in front of this guy and started taking pictures..." Those furtive photos were then used by the mobster to initiate private investigations and trace the identity of the police officer, while Teresi urgently fled home to hide the cash he had just collected.