“We repaired the Libyans’ weapons whatever the embargo,” acknowledged one engineer from the Caprera, in a cellphone title tapped by the police. “If this can get out, it’s a large number.”
The Italian Navy declined to comment — on each this or each different facet of the state of affairs.
The smuggling operation on the Caprera took kind throughout the spring of 2018, when sailors from the engineering division of the ship slowly crammed a workshop with sacks of cigarettes. The contraband, bought in Libya, might presumably be supplied in Italy for a giant markup by skirting extreme import duties.
A key piece of proof for investigators are photos from a farewell social gathering in May for Marco Corbisiero, the ship’s chief engineer, who accomplished his deployment aboard the Caprera sooner than the rest of the crew. Photographs shared on the ship’s WhatsApp group confirmed a grinning Mr. Corbisiero sitting sooner than a giant chocolate cake baked in his honor.
Behind him had been a lot of sacks of contraband cigarettes.
Textual content material messages and transcripts of cellphone calls tapped by the police later that 12 months level out that Mr. Corbisiero, now 44, was a key decide throughout the smuggling plan, prosecutors say. Mr. Corbisiero is probably going one of many 5 sailors on trial in Brindisi; his lawyer, Fabrizio Lamanna, acknowledged his client had been made a scapegoat throughout the case.
Since late 2017, monetary establishment data confirmed that he obtained tens of a whole lot of {{dollars}} from private individuals, along with Italian sailors, funds that investigators think about had been advance costs for contraband cigarettes. Mr. Corbisiero would have stood to earn virtually $120,000 from selling the cigarettes — about $90,000 larger than they worth to buy in Libya.
The overwhelming majority of cigarettes had been loaded onto the Caprera after Mr. Corbisiero had left the boat. Sooner than his departure, crew members would possibly merely switch throughout the workshop the place the cigarettes had been hidden. By the purpose the Caprera arrived in Brindisi, the room was so full of cigarette sacks that the regulation enforcement officers who seized the ship would possibly barely enter it.
