Brazil sting: was Duncan Petroni acting as a front?

Duncan Petroni, 36 of Birkirkara, had just sold his confectionery business in Swatar, three days before he left for Brazil, where he is being held on suspicion of drug trafficking.

The Maltese national was arrested in Curitiba, Brazil with his Romanian partner Silvia Stanica in a joint US drug enforcement agency (DEA) sting that yielded €1 million worth of pure cocaine. A total of 13kg of cocaine and 400 LSD microdots were seized.

According to Petroni’s father, it remains a mystery how his son could have been implicated in such a mess when “it was a fact [his] son was penniless.”

A shocked Philip Petroni said his son lived with him in a humble apartment, and that he never imagined his son could be involved in drug trafficking. “I don’t assume drugs can be bought on credit, because he had no money. In fact last Monday he phoned me from Brazil to ask me to top-up his mobile phone credit. That was the last we heard of him.”

Petroni also said his son had some €2,800 left from the sale of his confectionery, which was all the money he had when he left for Brazil. It seems Petroni has not yet been given the opportunity to make contact with his family in Malta, while attempts to contact the Brazilian embassy in Rome for information proved futile.

Police sources have also told MaltaToday that Duncan Petroni had already been interrogated on various occasions with regards to their suspicions on drug trafficking. His father claimed he was never informed by his son on the police interest.

According to the police, it was not the first time Duncan Petroni was involved in drug running from South America.

MaltaToday has established that Duncan Petroni also left Malta with a slew of debt in Malta from unpaid personal loans and other credit claims amounting to some €87,000. In January 2010, a court ordered him to pay back a private loan of €35,679 with interest. Another company he is a shareholder in was facing a €44,000 garnishee order by Bank of Valletta. And credit records also feature a €3,800 garnishee order by Go plc, a private claim of €2,800 filed in court against him, and a dishonoured credit agreement of €1,450.

Up until Wednesday morning, it is believed Petroni was still updating his social Facebook page with photos of his family and Range Rover, with its licence plate bearing his initials DRP and 007 – the number associated with fictional secret agent James Bond.

But his father claims the car did not belong to him although the licence plate bears his initials.

Brazilian Policia Federal yesterday released photos of Duncan Petroni and Stanica arriving at Curitiba airport, with him decked in a Brazil football shirt. Other photos show the couple being greeted by two friends, and the air-conditioning units he was to stash the drugs in. The cocaine was packed in the compressors of air-conditioning units and was to be exported through normal legal channels by sea.

Shots are believed to have been fired during the operation that involved 40 officers from Paranà’s federal police and plain-clothes officers from the American DEA. They were arrested with another four Brazilian nationals.

MaltaToday is informed that Duncan Petroni was placed on Interpol’s ‘watch-list’ six months ago as investigations carried out by the Maltese Security Services and the Drugs Squad had yielded enough intelligence to have it circulated to other police forces around the world, including the DEA and Interpol. American and Brazilian police had been following the movements of the group for the past three months.

The two will remain under arrest until they are arraigned in about 50 days' time. If found guilty, the pair faced between five and 15 years in prison.

Speaking to MaltaToday, a senior police official welcomed the news of Petroni’s arrest in Brazil and said that the quantities of drugs that have been seized justified the concerns on the man and his connections. Code-named ‘Operacao Malta’ the Brazilian Federal Police have also raided some 13 addresses of residences and companies, all apparently connected to the criminal organisation.

The Paranà state prosecutor described the operation as having dealt “a serious blow to the masterminds behind serious drug trafficking from Brazil to the Mediterranean.”