The rot started at the top, as emerged from an investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office, which had infiltrated the Catanzaro prison for several years. A facility that houses over six hundred inmates, the highest among the prisons of Calabria, including many affiliates to the 'ndrangheta. The former prison director, Angela Paravati, 59, and the former commander of the prison police, Simona Poli, 46, are also among the 26 people arrested in the Open gates operation carried out by the carabinieri and the same prison police. The suspects in the investigation are, in total, 76. Of the 14 prison police employees involved in the investigation, three ended up in prison.
In addition to Simona Poli, they are Maurizio Corasaniti, 54, and Domenico Sacco, 58. The District Gip of Catanzaro, Gabriella Pede, in addition to the 26 precautionary custody orders, 16 in prison and ten under house arrest, has also issued five obligations to report to the judicial police and seven suspensions from duty. A disturbing scenario, as the Acting Public Prosecutor, Vincenzo Capomolla, defined it in a press conference. The most serious position is that of Angela Paravati, who had left the direction of the prison in September 2022 after 12 years.
She is, in fact, charged with various crimes, ranging from external competition in association to delinquency and from falsehood to ideological falsehood and corruption. This latter crime comes from the fact that the former director would have facilitated the transfer of Emanuela Elia, chief assistant of the prison police corps, who is only under investigation in the investigation, to the Surveillance Court of Catanzaro. In return, Paravati would have obtained a stay for herself and her family in a hotel in Pizzo, one of the most renowned Calabrian tourist resorts. The investigation led to the discovery that two criminal groups had been formed in the prison, one dedicated to drug trafficking and the other to the smuggling of sim cards and mobile phones, without the former director or the prison police intervening, indeed with their complicity. Among other things, a search carried out inside the prison during the investigation had led to the discovery of two prepaid credit cards on which, in four months, operations for 35 thousand euros on one and 15 thousand euros on the other were found.
A particular case concerns a prisoner, Vincenzo Trimarchi, already admitted to external work, who would have had the opportunity in 2022, thanks to the good offices of director Paravati and Simona Poli, to view an apartment of his interest, in view of his release, scheduled for 2025, without any authorization from the surveillance judge. Trimarchi, however, after visiting the apartment, returned to prison and is still detained. A similar story to that of Catanzaro concerned the prison of Carinola, in Caserta. Even in this case, drug dealing activity and the introduction of mobile phones and telephone cards were discovered inside the structure, with the arrest of 13 people by the carabinieri.