Shortly before the summer of 2024, we met with a group of business owners from the Palermo hinterland who had long been caught in the suffocating grip of usury. That meeting marked the beginning of a long, quiet, and complex journey of listening and support — one that has now reached its first, liberating milestone.
Working alongside these business owners, and in close coordination with the magistrates of the Termini Imerese Prosecutor’s Office and the men and women of the Carabinieri, this process led to the victims’ decision to speak out and formally report the crimes they had suffered.
The collaboration between the victims, supported by Addiopizzo, and the investigative work carried out by law enforcement and prosecutors represents a well-established model — one that shows it is possible to break free even from suffocating phenomena such as usury.
The investigation, led by the Carabinieri Company of Corleone and coordinated by the Termini Imerese Prosecutor’s Office, has brought to light numerous cases of loan sharking committed between 2022 and 2024.
Below is the official press release issued by the Carabinieri:
The Carabinieri of the Operative and Mobile Unit of the Corleone Company have arrested a 37-year-old local businessman with no prior criminal record for the crime of usury, in execution of a pre-trial detention order issued by the Judge for Preliminary Investigations of the Termini Imerese Court.
The measure stems from a complex investigation carried out by the Carabinieri between June 2024 and July 2025, following a report submitted by the anti-racket association Addiopizzo and the related complaint filed by the owner of a commercial establishment in Corleone.
Through phone interceptions, financial checks, and witness statements, investigators reconstructed multiple acts of loan sharking allegedly committed by the suspect between 2022 and 2024 against the victim.
In particular, the arrested individual is accused of demanding interest rates exceeding 100% in exchange for loans, which were repaid either in cash, through the collection of checks, by selling a property at an extremely low price, or by transferring ownership of a commercial business free of charge.
The initial investigative framework— which had already led, in April, to the preventive seizure of a significant sum of money held in bank accounts and a plot of land belonging to the suspect — was strengthened by the identification of another victim. Further investigation led to the issuance of the current detention order, along with an additional preventive seizure for confiscation purposes, both carried out simultaneously.
The arrested individual has been transferred to the Termini Imerese Correctional Facility and placed at the disposal of judicial authorities. It must be noted that the suspect is currently only under investigation — albeit on serious grounds — and that his position will be definitively assessed only after a final court ruling, in accordance with the constitutional principle of the presumption of innocence.
