In the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani there is “a heterogeneous criminal context characterized by the coexistence of historical clans that have survived over time and emerging criminal groups, animated by a strong ambition for power, which are subjected to the external influences of the great associations of Foggia and Bari (societies Foggia, Cerignola underworld and Bari organized crime), which maintain strong interests in the area. The growth, including economic growth, of many associations would be linked precisely to the profitable synergies with groups from other provinces in the management of specific illicit activities”.
This was underlined by the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate in its report on the activity carried out and the results achieved in the first half of 2023, presented by the Minister of the Interior, and relating to the analysis of mafia-type organized crime phenomena in the period in question. The gangs of the Bat province, it is explained, are dedicated to the most diversified illicit activities such as those connected to predatory crimes, extortion, usury, counterfeiting, smuggling, drug dealing and trafficking, as well as the laundering of illicit capital , self-laundering, reuse of illicit proceeds and fictitious registration of assets. Attacks on armored vehicles and robberies on hauliers, in particular, although decreasing, represent highly profitable activities in economic terms and in terms of criminal affirmation and self-aggrandizement. Another type of crime that has emerged more recently is that of flash kidnappings of entrepreneurs and wealthy professionals, a phenomenon that had already afflicted the province in the 1990s. The latter were effectively countered by the timely action of the police forces and the judiciary with operations carried out in the reference semester. In this regard, there has been a targeted and functional collaboration between the Bat associations and criminal entities close to organized crime in other provinces as well.
Crimes against the agricultural sector represent, however, a real meeting ground and synthesis between common and organized crime, “given that many of the associations in the province pursue – underlined by the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate – this peculiar type of crime, favoring it or allowing it in order to exercise control of the territory and find liquidity, while at the same time exploiting it to facilitate the criminal growth of the young generation”. In addition to the thefts of agricultural products and vehicles, numerous damages and fires to crops have been recorded, probably for intimidating purposes.
These are signals, continues the Dia, “which would suggest a criminality that aspires to widespread control of the territory, also through the imposition of “protection” services, but which does not disdain aiming at the acquisition of companies in the sector , particularly attractive for the purposes of recycling activities and for the income deriving from the public funding they can enjoy. During the semester, there was no shortage of arson and damage to businesses and companies as well as acts of intimidation against local administrators”. For the Bat gangs, drug trafficking still constitutes the main source of economic supply, the volume of which shows no sign of decreasing over time. The town of Andria, in particular, continues to represent a strategic crossroads for the sorting of large quantities of narcotics throughout the country. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the huge seizure of numerous immovable and movable assets and company assets for a total value of approximately 80 million euros carried out by the Carabinieri on 9 March 2023 against a multiple criminal, Giuseppe Magno, and interested third parties , considered contiguous to the criminal environments of Andria. The recipient of the measure boasts a criminal history that began at the end of the 1980s with thefts, continued in the 1990s with smuggling, and then reached its peak with the robberies of trucks and armored vehicles and, finally, with the financing of the purchase of large consignments of narcotics.
In Bisceglie and the surrounding municipalities there are criminal groups operating in the Capriati clan of Bari, mainly active in the drug trafficking sector. The territory of the Bat province is in fact a natural outlet for flows of drugs coming from Albania but also a destination for loads transported by road from Spain and Holland. This particular geographical positioning would enhance the strategic role of the Bat criminal groups operating in the coastal area in the context of drug trafficking. These, also favored by relations with neighboring Albania, increasingly increase their criminal potential, assuming, even at a local level, a central role for the massive sorting of narcotic substances in the area. In Trinitapoli the De Rosa-Miccoli-Buonarota and Gallone-Carbone clans oppose each other, endemically engaged for years in a never-ending armed feud. Other clans operating in the area are those of Straniero-Sarcina and Cannito-Lattanzio in Barletta, Lapenna and Pistillo-Pesce in Andria, Annacondia and those of the Fiore-Risoli group of Bari, falling within the orbit of the Parisi-Palermiti clan of the Apulian capital, which took root now in the town of Trani. Also in the Andria area are the Corda-Lomolino partnership and representatives of the Lombardi-Regano group. Representatives of the Capriati of Bari operate in Biseglie.
