Italian Ultra Alessandro Casolari Awaits Trial Over €60,000 Kidnapping-Robbery Bid
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jun 16
Italian Ultra Alessandro Casolari Awaits Trial Over €60,000 Kidnapping-Robbery Bid
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jun 16
Summary
April 1, 2024 marked Casolari’s arrest after investigators tied him to an August 2023 plot to seize €60,000 from a cocaine client in Ferrara.
Prosecutors say the debtor was lured to a flat, beaten, bound with cable ties and threatened with a Taser and an unloaded pistol before escaping through a window.
Police surveillance that followed led to the seizure of 104 bullets, a sawn-off shotgun, 85 cartridges and 83 grams of cocaine; Casolari spent 177 days in custody, including 82 in solitary.
The report portrays Casolari as a former Spal ultra leader who later claimed to have moved about 400 kilos of cocaine across northern Italy between 2018 and 2023.
Now under house arrest and awaiting sentencing, Casolari has cast himself as a victim of prison abuse even as the case underscores the overlap between Italy’s ultra culture, organized violence and drug trafficking.