Italian Mafia Member Proposes During Trial
An Italian mafia member faces nearly 15 years in prison and has offered to donate a privately owned island worth around 100 billion won to reduce his sentence.
According to the British daily The Guardian on the 28th (local time), Raffaele Imperiale, an international drug dealer from the Camorra mafia organization in the Naples region of Italy, made this proposal during a trial held in Naples the day before.
Imperiale is known for building and maintaining an international cocaine trafficking network. Investigations revealed that he led a super drug cartel alongside Ridouan Taghi from the Netherlands, Daniel Kinahan from Ireland, and Edin Ga?anin from Bosnia. Italian judicial authorities consider Imperiale's organization to be one of the world's top 50 drug cartels, effectively monopolizing Peruvian cocaine.
He went into hiding in 2016 as police investigations closed in and lived as a fugitive for five years before being arrested in August 2021 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). He was extradited to Italy in March 2022 and was sentenced to 14 years and 10 months in prison.
The island Imperiale offered to donate during this trial is one of the artificial archipelagos called "The World," shaped like a world map off the coast of Dubai, known as "Taiwan." Its value is estimated between 60 million and 80 million euros (approximately 85 billion to 113 billion won). He purchased the island while on the run and enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle, spending 400,000 euros (about 570 million won) per month.
Maurizio Di Marco, the prosecutor, said, "It is clear that Imperiale wants a sentence reduction," adding, "We are evaluating the validity of the proposal, but there seems to be no doubt about his sincerity."
Meanwhile, Imperiale is also charged with possession of two stolen paintings, "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" and "The Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen," which disappeared without a trace from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2002. These paintings were found in 2016 at his villa near Naples. At that time, police believed he purchased the paintings on the black market with money earned from drug trafficking. These works were returned to their original place and exhibited again at the Van Gogh Museum in March 2017.
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