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10 May 2010 - 08:18
Rain of arrests
Fruit, the alliance between Casalesi and Catania

The heads of the 'Casalesi', of the Mallardo clans of Giugliano, Licciardi of Secondigliano and of the Sicilian mafia families of the Santapaola-Ercolano of Catania are beheaded. The Rome Dia and the Caserta mobile team, who signed the operation coordinated by the Naples anti-Mafia district attorney, carried out dozens of arrests. The dismantled criminal organization imposed the monopoly of road transport on traders and truckers of fruit and vegetable products throughout the Central South, with the consequent rise in fruit prices.

The heads of the Camorra and Mafia organizations met in a transport company in the Caserta area to decide on strategies and alliances. During the investigation, real arsenals of weapons from Bosnia were seized.


In the operation over sixty arrests were carried out by the men of the Mobile Squad of Caserta and of the Dia of Rome, and involved men from the Casalesi clan, the 'Schiavone' group, the Sicilian mafia families of the Santapaola-Ercolano of Catania, and the clans Mallardo di Giugliano and the Licciardi of Secondigliano. These are precautionary custody orders issued by the magistrate of Naples.

"It is a great operation against the Casalesi clan but not only". Thus the Interior Ministry, Roberto Maroni, commented on the anti-mafia operation of the Dia that allowed the arrest of members of the Casalesi and Cosa Nostra clans. "With this operation - explained Maroni - an operational connection between the Casalesi and Cosa Nostra in the fruit transport sector is ascertained". "It is another major operation of the Police - he concluded - against the crime system that is hit hard every day".

The investigation into the control of fruit and vegetables by an alliance between gangs of different regions has revealed the existence of a "mafia federalism": said the national anti-mafia prosecutor, Pietro Grasso, who participated in the press conference held in the Naples prosecutor's office.

Thanks to the alliances with other clans of Campania, Calabria and Sicily, Grasso clarified, the Casalesi have obtained the monopoly of the transport of fruit and vegetables in most of Italy. The result is what the national prosecutor has called "unthinkable things": for example, to be packed, strawberries are sent from Vittoria, in Sicily, to Fondi in the lower Lazio; from there they are then distributed throughout southern Italy and Milan: the consequences on prices are enormous.

Grasso also highlighted the arrest of some Sicilian entrepreneurs including Antonio and Massimo Sfraga linked to the fugitive boss Matteo Messina Denaro and Giuseppe and Vincenzo Ercolano, related to the Santapaola family.

Thanks to the ties with them, the Casalesi managed to control the fruit and vegetable markets of Western Sicily and Eastern Sicily respectively. The investigations coordinated by prosecutors Cesare Sirignano, Francesco Curcio and Ivana Fulco also availed themselves of the collaboration of two collaborators of justice: Felice Graziano, head of the big clan of Quindici (Avellino) and of Carmine Barbieri, already "man of honor" of the Madonia family of Gela and defined by the investigators of "very high". related to the Santapaola family.



There are 68 pre-trial detention orders issued in the Naples Dda investigation into the control of fruit and vegetable transport carried out by a cartel of the Camorra, the Mafia and the 'Ndrangheta.

A decree was issued this morning for the preventive seizure of a considerable amount of assets, estimated at around 90 million euros, consisting of dozens of companies in the sector, apartments, land, bank accounts and a fleet of commercial vehicles of over 100 units. The seizures were carried out in Campania, Lazio and Sicily.

There are also the boss of Cosa Nostra Giuseppe Ercolano, 75 years old, and his son Vincenzo, aged 40, among the recipients of the precautionary custody order issued against 68 suspects in the investigation by the Naples Dda on the control of fruit and vegetable transport carried out by a cartel of the Camorra clan , of the mafia and the 'ndrangheta.

They were arrested by the Dia and the Catania mobile squad together with Nunzio Di Bella, 47, Nunzio Scibilia, 48, and Orazio Fichera, 54, of Acireale.

Giuseppe Ercolano is the brother-in-law of the life imprisoner Benedetto Santapaola and has been indicated in the past by investigators as a prominent element of Cosa nostra in Catania.

He had been arrested on 31 January 2005 as part of the 'Storm' operation and released on February 24 of the same year by the review court which annulled the order of custody in prison issued against him by the magistrate Francesco D 'Arrigo.

The Dda of the Public Prosecutor's Office had challenged him for an extortion carried out by an entrepreneur from Catania from members of the ex-cosca Pulvirenti, who would have asked the alleged boss to authorize him to act, then paying him in exchange for a percentage of the collected 'lace' .

Giuseppe Ercolano, arrested in December 1992, had returned to liberty on 22 January 2004, when he left the prison of Lanciano (Chieti) after having finished serving a sentence of 12 years in prison for a mafia association that had been imposed on him in trials called 'Alleruzzo' and 'Orsa Maggiore'.