Operation Hiram: Italian Freemasonry and the Mafia

Global 'Ndrangheta operations

Back in June 2008 there was a story (in English) about the Italian authorities having concluded an investigation  “into attempts to slow down legal proceedings against members of the mafia with the help of members of the Freemasonry”:

(AGI) – Palermo, June 17 – Eight ‘prominent’ arrests were made by the police of Trapani and Agrigento last night, the conclusion of an investigation by the Anti-mafia District Department of Palermo into attempts to slow down legal proceedings against members of the mafia with the help of members of the Freemasonry. One of the arrested is Michele Accomando, entrepreneur in Mazara del Vallo (Trapani), already arrested in 2007, charged with mafia membership. The man is member of the loggia “Gran Serenissima” of the Freemasonry of Trapano. An official of the Finance Ministry working in Agrigento, Calogero Licata was also arrested, as well as a businessman from Agrigento, Nicola Sorrentino, and an employee of the Court of Cassation, Guido Peparaio, employee of the registrar’s office of the second penal section of the Court of Cassation. But according to the investigators the key figure is another arrested, the Roman wheeler-dealer Rodolfo Grancini.

Also arrested are a gynaecologist from Palermo, Renato De Gregorio, who would have been favoured through the delay of his case in Cassation, and a policewoman, Francesca Surdo, secretary of the director of the operational central Service of the State police.

There were more details in the proceeding days, but most of it was in Italian. From what I was able to gather at the time, the task force was dubbed (cleverly) Operation Hiram [Operazione Hiram]. There was at least one mobster-mason Michele Accomando arrested, and Calogero Licata, Nicola Sorrentino, Guido Peparaio, Rodolfo Grancini and Renato De Gregorio may well have been Freemasons too. The Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy, Gustavo Raffi was in the press, promising to protect the reputation of Freemasonry and that the latter would observe the criminal proceedings as a civil party; one of the suspects was Grand Master Stefano De Carolis of the Serene Grand Lodge ‘Unita d’Italia’; also implicated was a Jesuit Priest from Rome, Father Ferruccio Romanin.  (more...)

Operation Hiram: Italian Freemasonry and the Mafia

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