In an Italian documentary about the SCU I watched, they said it's the only mafia-type organization that theoretically could be eradicated from the region because, unlike the other 3 (Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta and Camorra), they don't have a long history that makes them go back to some historical aspects of local culture, with many "grey areas": even when it's not outright crime, it's silent complicity by many local citizens who aren't members or associates themselves, but are either afraid or just don't trust the authorities, even the ones who don't take bribes. In the Apulia region on the other hand, the mafia is not THAT well developed, it has been formed in a "real" sense of the word only in the first 80s, when Giuseppe Rogoli started organizing the prisoners (including the ones that were about to be released and therefore could extend their power to the streets), to resist the attempt by Raffaele Cutolo and his camorra to take over the region. Rogoli was backed by the 'ndrangheta boss Umberto Bellocco and succeeded in preventing the camorra to take over, but his organization still wasn't as strong as the other regions, some groups started separating from the main SCU organization and even today experts say that it's incorrect to say that all the mafia in Apulia is SCU, in reality it's just the biggest and strongest, while the others are separate groups with other names.

Anyway, the point is that, being relatively young / recent and not yet solidified as an organization with powerful connections or radicated in local culture, THEORETICALLY they could clean up the region if they really wanted to, it would be much easier than Sicily, Campania and Calabria. But, as usual, they don't want to. Even if the authorities maybe aren't corrupt as a whole, but many of the ones who aren't corrupt, are LAZY, and that's not really better...