“Mafias vote and make people vote”

Political-mafia electoral exchange a Naplesthe blitz starts carabinieri And District Anti-Mafia Directorate. The municipal elections that were held and Look it upmunicipality at the eastern gates of the Neapolitan capital, in 2023. 7 arrests were carried out this morning in the neighborhoods of the eastern area of Ponticelli-Barra-San Giovanni a Teduccio and the neighbor Municipality of Cercola, by the carabinieri of the Torre Del Greco company, in the province of Naples. The soldiers of the Carabinieri have implemented a precautionary custody order (six arrests in prison and one under house arrest) issued by investigating judge of the court of Naples, at the request of the Neapolitan DDA, affecting 7 people in the Ponticelli and San Giovanni a Teduccio districts of Naples and in the Caravita area of ​​Cercola. The investigation started from a report from the Local Police of Cercola.

The suspects are considered to be seriously suspected, in various capacities, of the crimes of political-mafia electoral exchange as well as of criminal association aimed at electoral corruption and of possession and carrying of weapons in public places, crimes aggravated by the mafia method and the aim of facilitating the named Camorra-type associations Fusco-Ponticelli clan And De Micco-De Martino, operating in the Cercola area and in the eastern area of ​​Naples between the territories of Ponticelli, Barra and San Giovanni a Teduccio. The Prosecutor of the Republic of Naples, Nicola Grattericalled a press conference this morning.

Who are the suspects in the investigation?

Among the suspects, according to initial information, there are Sabino De Miccocouncilor of the VI Municipality of San Giovanni, Barra and Ponticelli of Naples, who on the institutional page of the Municipality of Naples today appears as group leader of Brothers of Italy. De Micco he was elected as an independent candidate for president of the Municipality, breaking with Catello Maresca. He would later become a point of reference for Forza Italia. Subsequently he would pass with Fratelli d’Italia.

Among those arrested is Antonietta Ponticelliat the time representative of “Green Europe” list, daughter of life prisoner Gianfranco Ponticelli, the latter believed to be the head of the clan of the same name. It would have been she who attracted the attention of the Local Police of Cercola. What made the officers suspicious was an episode in which the woman showed up with dozens of proxies to collect around thirty voter ID cards from citizens who had declared them lost. Ponticelli had already been convicted of mafia-type criminal association and was therefore banned from holding public office and deprived of the right to vote. Her appointment as list representative, therefore, could only be false, as her investigations later documented.

Arrest also for the candidate for municipal councilor, Giusy De Miccoat the time registered in the “Green Europe” list, who with the help of the “Fusco-Ponticelli” clan and with the criminal collaboration of some of his relatives believed to be linked to the “De Micco-De Martino” clan, allegedly made an agreement with the Camorra of Cercola and the eastern area of ​​Naples (with the Mazzarella clan): through his father and brother (Giovanni De Micco and Sabino De Micco, both arrested), and would have paid 1,800 euros in exchange for a package of votes.

The arrests in prison were reported to Giuseppina De Micco50 years old, Sabino De Micco25 years old, Giusy De Micco30 years, Antonietta Ponticelli43 years old, Salvatore Capasso45 years old, and Pasquale De Micco, 51 years old. House arrest instead for Giovanni De Micco75 years old.

The investigations also made it possible to shed full light on the Camorra cartel “Mazzarella-De Micco-De Martino-Aprea”, which operates in the Ponticelli, Barra and San Giovanni a Teduccio districts of Naples. The carabinieri also documented episodes of electoral corruption in 2020 by the De Luca Bossa-Minichini clan and the beating of a criminal from the Caravita district of Cercola, accused of having bought votes for a candidate for the regional council of Campania without having paid a bribe to the camorra.

Naples, votes at auction sold for 20 and 30 euros

The investigations, according to the first information leaked, would relate to the local elections of May 2023. In the case of Look it up, a small municipality on the eastern gate of Naples, it would be the round of 14 and 15 May 2023 and the subsequent run-off on 25 and 26 May. The votes would have been sold, according to the magistrates’ hypotheses, to 30 euros per vote for the first electoral round it’s at 20 euros for the ballot. The investigations are coordinated by pm Henry John Woodcock And Stefano Capuano. Investigators are examining various alleged episodes of political-mafia exchange votes, documented in the Vesuvian municipality. The suspects would have created, with a perfect organization and division of tasks and roles, a mechanism aimed at polluting the outcome of the electoral consultations.

Among those arrested would also be the daughter of a boss serving a life sentence, a list representative at the time of the events, a candidate linked by family ties to the De Micco clan, her brother, a councilor in a municipality in Naples, and also their father. The measure carried out is a precautionary measure ordered during preliminary investigations, against which appeals are permitted and the recipients of the same are people subjected to investigations and, therefore, presumed innocent until a final sentence is reached.

The wiretaps: “They bought the votes… they have the money and they buy…”

In the wiretaps, acquired by the investigators, we read words such as: «They bought the votes… they have the money and they buy…». According to investigations, there would have been vote buying in view of the local elections in Cercola. But the candidates for whom there should have been a vote would ultimately not have been elected. The latter, according to what has been reconstructed, would then have complained to the voters that they had promised consensus and pocketed money from more than one candidate.

The investigators: “Democracy at auction”

The investigators are very harsh in their indictment: they write that in the Cercola area the buying and selling of votes during each electoral round «is a practice, perceived as necessary by the political protagonists as well as accepted by the voters, widespread and transversal to all deployments”:

It is so disturbing that it surpasses in crudeness and total lack of sense of proportion that staged, with the intention of arousing hilarity through the most extreme paradox, by professional directors and comedians in fiction films.

A scenario in which democracy is up for auction with a base of 20 euros and increases so negligible that almost half of the voters prefer to take and accumulate even the lowest price offered by the competition, without following up on their promise to vote”. This will even earn the voter the barbs and accusations of “disloyalty” from the corruptors, as well as the start of intimidating conduct aimed at recovering the sums paid to individual voters suspected of “betrayal”.

The chief prosecutor of Naples Nicola Gratteri, in answering journalists’ questions during the press conference on the arrests as part of an investigation into polluted voting, explains: «My certainty is that the mafias vote and make people vote in their own interest. But if the mafias offer, it’s because there is someone who buys.”