Sixteen years of unchallenged government, from 2009 to today, and before that a two-year period in which the ground for the conquest is prepared with two attempted murders. The recent history of Milan’s Curva Sud it is a narrative that takes place in “a climate of violence” and inside “a faida” continues against those who, over time, have tried to gain power. Moreover, the attempted murders will rise to four in total. And so the story of the second blue ring of Meazza stadium he cannot ignore the story of his boss, the 44 year old from Milan Luca Lucci (to whom of the four only one attempted murder is charged), the manifesto of which is all in these words, reported in the motivations from the judgment of first degree with respect to the Double Curve investigation: “You have to appear different from what you really are”.
Lucci and “opportunistic thinking”
A phrase that, according to the judge Rossana Mongiardobetrays the “opportunistic” thinking of Lucci (sentenced to 10 years) and his Board of Directors. So much so that, according to the accusation shared by the court, “the structure” set up by Lucci “through its facade lawfulnesswould have exploited the power deriving from the possibility of moving an extremely large group of fans to achieve illicit profits, violently acquiring and maintaining absolute control over the AC Milan fans.”
The “strategy for absolute hegemony”
Violent actions e punitive expeditionsat least starting from 2016, “symptomatic of a strategyshared among the members of the Board of Directors, aimed at achieving and maintaining a position of absolute hegemony and undivided in the management of organized support, as well as in the pursuit, through this position of strength, of illicit and extortionate advantages”. A picture, it must be said, contested by the defense “who refuted the statement provided by the public prosecution”.
The permanent “faida”
According, however, to the judge’s motivations, it is a permanent “feud” that before Lucci began in 2006 with his former friend Giancarlo Lombardi who with his Ultras Warriors conquers power. In the meantime, two attempted murders significantly weaken the historic group of Tiger Commandos. With the arrest of Lombardi, in 2007 Lucci is already leader of the Warriors. Two years later he ends up implicated in the beating of an Inter fan during a derby. “Nevertheless – writes the judge – precisely in that year the accused managed to achieve the unification of the supporters organized under the single banner called Curva Sud”.
The beating of Genoa
2016 is then the year of absolute power which coincides with the expulsion of the Tigre Commandos. On April 9th during Milan-Juventus, Lucci’s gang goes down to the first blue ring and has the Commandos banner removed, exposing that of South Curve. A week later during the trip to Genoa, his praetorians await the Commandos boys inside the guest sector. The beating is violent. The Commandos retreat. The judge writes: “It was a real one show of strength and the definitive position taken by the Curva Sud”.
The criminal stumbles of the ultras leader
Meanwhile Luca Lucci, said the Bullbegins to stumble into significant crimes and this risks compromising his now established leadership with the removal of Giancarlo Lombardi. In prison, however, Toro has very little use. On 4 June 2018 he received an order (later negotiated) for drug dealing. In July he was already free with only the obligation to report to the judicial police. Three years later he still ends up in trouble for drug trafficking, again registered as a drug dealer and reconstructed through encrypted chat. No prison, just house arrest and a seven-year sentence. In the meantime, a lot has happened in the past three years.
The aims of men close to the mafia
The investigations against him have in fact reinvigorated appetites for the big business of the Curva Sud. Mafia appetites too. In 2018 the Calabrian Domenico Vottari, who, despite never being convicted for mafia, maintains close relationships with clan representatives, plans the takeover. The group behind him Black Devils, a cross between ultras and Milan club. In February 2018 he took part in a secret summit which he also attended Giuseppe Calabròplenipotentiary of the San Luca gangs. Nicknamed the Doctor he will say: “Collaborate, it must be done seriously! What we can take today for tomorrow”. Vottari is laconic on the Curva Sud: “There is a lot of money, only there is one thing, they have monopolized the Curva”. And above all, behind Lucci and the Curva Sud there are the guarantors of Platì’s ‘ndrangheta. This is why Vottari remains firm, but explains: “If Sarino takes off, I’ll eat this.”
The attack on the Vottari restaurant
Vottari’s confidence, however, increases when Lucci ends up arrested for the first time. The Taurus praetorians smell the air and begin to put pressure on the people close to Vottari. So much so that a member of the Black Devils fears the worst: “Believe me Mimmo, it means that they have already planned, everything exactly as it was years ago for the Commandos, they have already planned where, how and when to carry out the action. Sure!”. And in fact, precisely in the logic of that “climate of violence” and of a “permanent feud”, the November 3, 2018 the Vottari a Solaro gets hit by “a bomb attack”. The investigation into the matter will be closed, but for Judge Mongiardo the responsibility (not criminally contested) lies with Lucci and his most trusted men such as Daniele Cataldoweapons and drugs expert.
“It’s the first episode of Judgment Day”
The subsequent analysis of his cell phone will demonstrate that “he had been informed of what happened in the Vottari club by Daniele Cataldo less than 3 hours after the explosion of the paper bomb, when the news had not yet been disclosed publicly”. The judge reconstructs his reasons: “From the analysis of the forensic copy of Lucci’s phone, it emerged that Cataldo, at 06:33, or approximately three hours after the positioning of the letter bombsent, via Whatsapp, to the former’s private chat a video portraying him while running, reassuring him that everything had gone well, while literally uttering the following expression: ‘Today we do the first episode of the Judgment Day series’“.
The most turbulent period
Again in the reasons for the Doppia Curva sentence we read: “The story expresses in the most dramatic way the extent to which Luca Lucci’s struggle to maintain hegemony over the AC Milan fans had reached.” It is a turbulent period to say the least for the head of the Curva Sud. In fact, it is not just Vottari. “At the same time – we read in the sentence – but separately, they proceeded in this direction (i.e. entering into the affairs of the curve, ndr) also the lawyer Alessandro Verga Ruffonitogether with Enzo Anghinelli”, the latter an old AC Milan fan with a past in drug trafficking, already in relations with Giancarlo Lombardi and in contact with Vottari himself.
Lucci’s reaction: attempted murder
According to the reconstruction made in the sentence, Lucci’s reaction was violent and rapid. Both Verga Ruffoni and Anghinelli were beaten on three occasions between October 2018 and March 2019. To then arrive at morning of April 12, 2019 when two men on scooters in the very central Via Cadore they fire five gunshots at Anghinelli who does not die, ends up in a coma and in the end he survives. For this fact, although some doubts remain about the motive and the killers, Lucci is convicted and with him Daniele Cataldo. “The picture that emerges against Luca Lucci – judge Rossana Mongiardo maintains the point – is that of a person who leads a small, very loyal group of fans who, inside the Curva Sud, is ready to defend the power gained, if necessary even with the use of firearms”.
The hunt for Lombardi inside Old Fashion
The same weapons, still in the hands of the pro-consul Cataldo, from whom Giancarlo Lombardi escaped, who starting from the first arrest of Lucci in every way attempted to re-enter the South curve even by taking the bank up criminal groups like the Barona band headed by Nazzareno Calajò. Moreover, according to the sentence, the Ruffoni-Anghinelli duo will also go to the Calajò court to ask for revenge. The January 12, 2024, Lombardi is present in the discoteca Old Fashion. Unfortunately for him, members of Lucci’s board also participate in the evening and hunt him down, almost catching him, but he manages to escape, escaping a probably armed attack given that according to the judge, the omnipresent Cataldo had arrived at Old Fashion with a gun.
The “war” in the hands of Cataldo
And once again “that air of violence” and permanent “feud” returns. So much so that the judge notes: “This too group action to the detriment of Lombardi, which, reasonably, could have had much more serious consequences if Cataldo had not lost his gun, was participated and fully shared by all the members of the Curva Sud who had participated”. Lucci’s war is therefore “a war” to reiterate “his hegemony” linked to the fact of “not wanting to share his business territory with anyone”. A war whose “strategy is also entrusted to a person, like Cataldo Daniele, who appears to have been arrested in 2015 for possession of drugs, stolen vehicles and above all weapons and who, in two-year period 2018-2019, had participated in the most serious attacks against Vottari and Anghinelli and, again, in the attack against the latter and Lombardi, which occurred in 2024″.
The bars on the Croatian ultras
Force and violence and certainly not dialogue, according to the judge, characterize Lucci’s rise to power and the maintenance of the status quo. With ambushes and punitive expeditions, but also showing its muscles in front of other groups of ultras how it happens September 14, 2022 against the Croatian ultras of Dinamo Zagreb. From the chats, what emerges from Lucci is “full satisfaction and satisfaction with the demonstration of strength”. So much so to write: “He gave him a bolted in the face. He fainted on his legs, the others stopped, they kind of got scared. Three or four more bolts.” He then intervenes in the dialogue Alessandro Sticco said Shreckperhaps the only true heir of Toro: “No Luca, you can’t understand, do you know that my eyes are shining with emotion? I feel like when my daughter was born, no maybe more”. All these episodes narrated by judge Rossana Mongiardo’s sentence “do not constitute isolated deviances, but real pieces of the same strategy: it is, in short, a group that asserts itself with its hands, which describes itself as a guide, but which, in fact, governs with violence”. Because Toro Lucci’s true manifesto is always the same: “You have to appear different from what you really are.”
