Modena, August 24, 2026 – From Ravarino to Panama, in the last two years the life of a family has turned into a nightmare. The story is told by the wife of Cosimo Cinque, almost 80 years old, detained in the American country after a legal case dating back even 20 years. The woman, Paola Simonini, talks about her husband’s precarious conditions, the phone calls in prison, and the fear that he might not make it.
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“If you have committed crimes you must pay – she says –, but that a man of that age should be treated this way is not right. He is detained following an Italian sentence of five years for a bankruptcy proceeding dating back to February 2006, for an amount which, according to the documents we have, is about 38,000 euros.” What worries the wife most are Cosimo’s physical conditions: “Heart problems, pneumonia, very serious general conditions and the suspicion of a possible chronic myeloid leukemia. He is very pale, he can’t make it. I am afraid he will die in there.”
A story that starts from Ravarino. She was born and raised in the municipality of Bassa Modenese, while Cosimo is originally from Naples. “We have been together for thirty years. When I met him he had a dairy.”
Then, she says, “in 2017 with our son we decided to move to Panama. I have a cleaning business and here I started working for hotels, hospitals, and other entities.” A choice that, in hindsight, would completely change their lives.
The bankruptcy is from twenty years ago, but the justice bill would have arrived only in 2021, with a trial – the family accuses – “held even in the absence of the accused and without him being notified for a long time.” “The first time they came to get him (in 2024, ed.) there were Interpol agents, without an interpreter. We felt powerless. He was thrown in prison along with other criminals.” After the first arrest, the family managed to obtain his release by paying a bail of 25,000 dollars. But since then the battle has not ended, on the contrary, a long legal fight has started that seems never-ending. “On May 15 of this year, through a simple communication received via chat – Simonini continues – I was informed of a new hearing before the Panamanian judicial authorities. My husband was arrested again and this time his physical conditions were already severely worsened. I managed to involve the Defensoría del Pueblo de Panamá which certified the critical conditions of the penitentiary and together we obtained his transfer to Santo Tomás hospital. But about ten days ago, at night without notice, my husband was discharged and brought back to the detention facility of Tinajitas. I can see him once a week, for an hour. In these meetings I can only leave him a few t-shirts and underwear, but he is destroyed. He tells me: ‘I can’t take it anymore’.” So far, requests for help have been useless: “I wrote to everyone, I even asked for a pardon for him from the Italian institutions. The embassy has never helped me, this is what disappoints me the most. We have no cooperation.” The family’s lawyer Vincenzo Alesci confirms the situation: “My client, Cosimo Cinque, has never been put in a position to defend himself against the charges. Everyone washed their hands of it. The serious problem is that this extradition request, arriving after so many years, finds him in terrible conditions. A striking case of absolute lack of relations between Italian and Panamanian institutions.”
