Two scoops of pistachio, one of corruption. For years holidaymakers have guzzled Sicilian gelato at famous parlours in Palermo, unaware that the booming businesses were controlled by organised crime.
The fraud was a textbook case for detectives trained to sniff out dirty money, but even with three mobster classics — a suspicious bankruptcy, a front man and a scheming “Godfather” — it took years for investigators to shut the operation down.
The Brioscia brand, made up of two ice cream parlours, was thriving at the end of the 2010s, attracting locals and foreign visitors alike with its glittering gold stars on travel websites.
The shops were run by Mario Mancuso. Behind the scenes was Michele Micalizzi who had served several stretches in jail for Mafia association.
Mancuso took care of the ice cream, Micalizzi managed the rest.
That included taking a cut of the profits for protecting Mancuso from extortion attempts by other gangsters, a judicial source told AFP.
But the company was in the name of Mancuso’s wife and when divorce loomed, the men feared they would lose control.
They declared Brioscia bankrupt in 2021, blaming the four million euro ($4.3 million) hole in the books on the Covid lockdown, the source said.
“It was a flourishing business, very well known in Palermo. The bankruptcy was therefore unjustified,” he told AFP.
Suspicious investigators used wiretaps to discover the two men — far from being bankrupt — had grand plans to open parlours abroad.
The pair launched a new company called Sharbat, renaming the shops, the source said.
“I’m not even sure the employees knew who they were working for”, a nearby shop worker said on condition of anonymity.
Investigators say the men divided the windfall, with Micalizzi passing part of it to his jailed relatives to pay for legal fees or sundries.
But on August 12, the police pounced, arresting both men and four accomplices, and seizing 1.5 million…