Guglielmo Ponari, 63 years old, who provided weapons to Mafia organizations in Catania and invented the so-called “pen-gun” in the 1960s, was arrested by the police of Catania because he owned an arsenal. The man had 24 guns, 3 of which ready to be used, a rifle, many magazines and silencers. The police also impounded a laboratory to modify toy-weapons into real guns. According to the police, Ponari still sold weapons to criminal organizations. He owned the pen-guns found in the 1970s in Turin and used by a criminal organization.

According to the investigators, Ponari, a plumber from Catania, invented the pen-guns in 1963 after having seen a James Bond movie. He managed to create his first model which was able to shoot a 6.35 bullet. The former plumber started to sell on the black market his patent. In 1975 he was arrested and sentenced to three years of imprisonment for having built submachine guns. He was then arrested in the province of Messina while he was carrying 12 guns that had to be handed over to the clans of Tortorici. On the 24th of May 1982 in Lineri, near Catania, the police discovered a factory where Ponari built guns, submachine guns, magazines and silencers, which he sold to the Camorra.

Ponari was arrested for illegal weapon detention in 1993, 2003, 2006 and 2007. Yesterday the police, on the orders of prosecutor Lucio Setola, arrested him while he was handling a toy-gun  Valtro which he modified with a magazine and a silencer. The investigators also found another two guns and a rifle, which worked perfectly, munitions, seven silencers and 25 magazines. But not only. He had also hidden  21 Valtro guns and 19 silencers that still had to be modified. Ponari worked in his house in the San Cristoforo suburb. The police impounded everything and Ponari was taken to prison.  
 

Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute