Camorra infiltration, Caserta municipality dissolved. The mayor: we will challenge the decision

It was the Access Commission's report sent last summer by the Ministry of the Interior that led to the government's decision to dissolve the Municipality of Caserta, one of the five provincial capitals of Campania, led since 2016 by PD member Carlo Marino, who is also the current regional president of Anci. Marino replies: 'It is an act of a political nature as well as an abnormal administrative act. We will immediately make a request for access to the documents and, subsequently, we will challenge the decision before the Lazio TAR. It is an act against the city and all the citizens of Caserta'.

It was the then Prefect of Caserta, Giuseppe Castaldo, who pointed out in a dossier the judicial problems that had involved prominent members of the Marino junta and senior executives of the municipality in June 2024, accused of having conspired to award municipal contracts in exchange for favours, money and votes, to several entrepreneurs, some of whom were believed to be close to the Belforte Camorra clan of Marcianise. The investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, led by Pierpaolo Bruni, led to several arrests in the Municipality of Caserta, including top managers of the Municipality, employees and the councillor in charge of public works (arrests later annulled by the Review). It was precisely after this investigation that the Access Commission arrived, despite the fact that Mayor Carlo Marino had come to the rescue by resetting the council. Moreover, the same Marino is already on trial at the court of Santa Maria Capua Vetere together with other former executives and municipal employees for another affair in 2021 of rigged waste contracts, involving a contractor considered to be a white collar of the Camorra.

There is another trial that has been going on for years concerning the underground car park in Via San Carlo, which, according to the Naples DDA, was built by a company linked to the clan led by Michele Zagaria; the defendant in this trial is the municipal manager Franco Biondi, who also appears in the San Marino Public Prosecutor's Office investigation of last June. The last criminal proceeding concerning the Municipality of Caserta took place last autumn, when the Access Commission was already in place: the Public Prosecutor's Office of Santa Maria Capua Vetere investigated municipal contracts for public green areas, arresting again Biondi and other public employees (all of whom are now at large).

The Council of Ministers also decided today to dissolve three other municipalities: they are Aprilia, in Lazio, and Badolato and Casabona in Calabria. The former mayor of Aprilia, Lanfranco Principi, a centre-right exponent, will be put on immediate trial on 10 June in front of the court in Latina, together with 18 other defendants arrested as part of the maxi-investigation by the Carabinieri on mafia infiltration in the municipality. The mayor of Casabona was Francesco Seminario, from the PD area, who was arrested for political-mafia exchange in October 2024. In Badolato, the mayor was Giuseppe Nicola Parretta, who was also arrested last January for 'ndrangheta affairs together with the deputy mayor and the president of the municipal council. The two administrations were governed by commissioners.