Antonino Vadala at the Košice court session on April 20, which decided on his extradition. (source: TASR)
The customs office in Michalovce resided in a company owned by Antonino Vadala, an Italian businessman with links to the Calabrian mafia.
The Financial Administration confirmed the information for the Sme daily, following its report on the communication between former Slovak police attaché in Rome, Dáša Macková, with Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (DIA), the Italian multi-force agency dedicated to solving and preventing mafia-related crimes, from 2013.
“It is said, among other things, that the district customs office in Michalovce resides in a building rented by the Bovinex Europa company [owned by Vadala – ed. note], and it is expected that the deliveries from Vadala are checked only superficially, if at all,” Macková wrote to the DIA, as quoted by Sme.
The communication was first published by the Italian public-service television RAI, in a report by investigative journalist Maria Grazia Mazzola.
Macková’s statement was part of the letter correspondence exchanged between March 18 and November 21, 2013, between Slovak and Italian police officers, which concerned Vadala and his activities in Slovakia.
Police have not responded yet
“The customs directorate signed an agreement on renting non-residential spaces with the Hesax company back in 1999,” Ivana Skokanová, spokesperson for the Financial Administration, explained to Sme.
Based on this agreement, the customs office resided on Priemyselná Street in Michalovce. Back in July 2008, the representative of the company told all tenants that the rent will be terminated on July 31, 2008, since the building was sold to a new owner, Bovinex Europa. The new owner took all tenants under unchanged conditions, Skokanová added.
The customs office terminated the rental agreement on September 27, 2011, she continued. However, Macková wrote about the customs office residing in Vadala’s firm in 2013, and she used present tense, Sme wrote.
The Financial Administration has not commented on the suspicions that Vadala smuggled drugs with the help of customs officers.
Police have shared this suspicion, but neither the police nor Macková have answered Sme’s questions yet. Macková already told Sme in the past that she did not want to comment on her communication with the DIA.
