The China Mail - Organised crime and murder: top Inter and AC Milan ultras imprisoned

All 16 people standing trial for a variety of offences, in a fast-track procedure which began in March, were found guilty and handed sentences which added up to 90 years.

The crimes broadly involved activities around the iconic San Siro stadium on matchdays, from ticket touting to control of parking, sales from concession stands and taking payment from people without tickets and letting them into the stadium.

Andrea Beretta was one of three people handed the harshest sentence, the former leading Inter ultra being found guilty of criminal conspiracy aggravated by mafia methods and the murder of fellow top Inter ultra and mobster Antonio Bellocco.

Beretta turned state's witness after stabbing to death Bellocco during an altercation outside a boxing gym in a Milan suburb, weeks before the arrest in September of 19 leading Inter and Milan ultras.

The murder of Bellocco was especially shocking due to his status as a scion of an 'Ndrangheta mafia family, from the southern Italian region of Calabria, which bears his surname.

Beretta was also one of six people to be arrested in April for the murder of notorious ultra and career criminal Vittorio Boiocchi in October 2022.

- Power struggle -

He stepped up to take over the "Curva Nord" section of the San Siro from Boiocchi who was gunned down outside his house at the age of 69 as part of a power struggle between rival factions.

Beretta and Marco Ferdico -- sentenced to eight years -- used Bellocco's 'Ndrangheta connections to push aside more traditional football hooligans, linked with far-right politics, who were bidding for top billing among the Inter ultras.

Milan's top ultra Luca Lucci was also given 10 years in prison for criminal conspiracy and planning in 2019 the attempted murder of a rival ultra, Enzo Anghinelli.

His right-hand man Daniele Cataldo, judged to be the man who carried out the attack on Anghinelli, was handed the same prison sentence.

The fast-track trial, known as "rito abbreviato", is a legal procedure in Italian law in which defendants are judged on the basis of evidence brought by prosecutors, with no debate of that evidence by legal teams.

The procedure allows trials to be completed in a much shorter space of time than the years it takes for the ordinary judicial procedure, under which the remaining three people arrested in September began their trial in February.

That trio includes Francesco Lucci, who often took charge of the Milan ultras during his brother Luca's frequent problems with the law for offences that include drug trafficking and the assault of an Inter fan who was blinded and later committed suicide.

Neither of the clubs were charged in relation to the crimes, and were awarded 50,000 euros each as civil defendants and damaged parties in the trial.

H.Au--ThChM