As pictures of the captured mafioso Domenico Raccuglia were beamed around the world on Sunday, Palermo’s élite Catturandi police – whose job is to capture fugitives – were experiencing mixed emotions. Certainly, they were justifiably happy about a job well done; but they were also justifiably disappointed about expenses and overtime which have yet to be paid.
Cuts in the budget of the Security Police have made life as difficult for the Catturandi as the fugitives they are sent to track down and arrest, Franco Billitteri, an official of the Police Union, Siap, told La Repubblica. Reimbursements for expenses incurred outside Palermo have not been paid for many months, overtime has been cut and reimbursement for meals necessarily taken outside Sicily’s capital arrive nine months late. All this has resulted in the Catturandi having to pay these expenses out of their own pockets.
The arrest of Raccuglia - known as the “veterinarian” and the second in command of the Mafia as a whole - entailed a lot of travel between Palermo and Trapani for the police officers. Mafia fugitives usually hide out somewhere on their own territory as to move from it would be to risk a challenge to their power. Therefore it was on his home territory near Trapani that the net finally closed around Raccuglia, who has been sentenced, in absentia, to three life terms for murder and attempted murder.
During the operation, the Catturandi at one stage found themselves with access to only two unmarked police cars, all the others being in use elsewhere. Nor was this the end of their misfortunes, for when the toilets were out of order in their building they had to walk to police headquarters every day for a month in order to relieve themselves. After the capture of Provenzano by the same Squad, the officers waited two years to be paid for their overtime. This also happened after the arrest of Lo Piccolo and when they were paid, they received only fifty per cent of the total due to them. “The Organised Crime Department curiously has interprovincial powers but no funding for operations outside Palermo”, says Mr Billitteri.
Italy has strict regulations regarding overtime, which is only permitted if occasional or “due to exceptional technical production requirements that cannot be met by taking on other workers” (eurofound.europa.eu). EU directives on maximum working hours further complicate the issue. Therefore the officers, who have worked 100 hours’ overtime each in the past month, can expect to have only 55 hours each taken into account, 36 hours of which will probably be paid. This is the situation they face despite the congratulations of politicians on all sides.
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