“In Cerignola the Piarulli clan and the Di Tommaso clan are mainly active who collaborates with the former in some criminal sectors, namely in that of extortion, robberies and narcotics”. This was reported by the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate in the report for the first half of 2023.
“The Piarulli clan among the related organizations to the fourth Foggia mafia – we read -, is the one that has a high financial capacity such as to be able to diversify the money laundering operations into various economic activities (management of reception rooms, hotels, fuel stations, supermarkets, car parks, companies agri-food sector). The main sectors of criminal interest are: the large-scale management of drug trafficking; thefts of vehicles, including special ones, and cars used for receiving stolen goods and money laundering; the trafficking of weapons, hydrocarbons and sophisticated alcoholic products. The armed attacks on armored vehicles and robberies on hauliers, also perpetrated outside the region, as well as thefts from vaults, have concretely demonstrated the association’s peculiar aptitude in managing, both in the organizational and executive phases, sensational and alarming criminal events for methods and unscrupulousness”.
The investigators they later remembered the important “Cocktail” blitz of last year: “On 16 March 2023, the Carabinieri of Foggia and the Guardia di Finanza of Bari, as part of the Cocktail operation, implemented a precautionary measure against 26 subjects (mostly residing in Cerignola) as they were held responsible, in various capacities, for criminal association aimed at the illicit trafficking of drugs (cocaine, marijuana and hashish), possession and carrying in public places of firearms, both common and war, extortion, theft of motor vehicles, receiving stolen goods , aiding and abetting and attempted murder”.
While “on 18 January 2023, Dia executed an asset seizure measure against a top member, a well-known exponent of organized crime in Cerignola (the 50 year old Pasquale Saracino, ed), included in the peculiar criminal segment of attacks on valuables. The seizure concerned assets with a total value of 5.5 million euros.”
And again: “On 18 January 2023, the Guardia di Finanza of Cerignola, as part of the operation ‘The cat and the fox’, implemented a precautionary measure in various municipalities in the province of Foggia and in Melfi (PZ). against 10 individuals held responsible for crimes relating to narcotic substances, cocaine and hashish”.
Fibrillations also in the rest of the Lower Tavoliere, spotlights on the Five real sites: “In the city of Stornara the presence of the family of Machave, strongly linked to Cerignola crime and the Ortense environments. The group would be dedicated to extortion activities, the commission of predatory crimes and the illicit trafficking of waste. A group is said to be operating in Orta Nova (the Gaeta clan, ed) linked by a parental bond with the family Moretti, central within Foggia society. The interests of this group are diversified across multiple illicit activities (waste trafficking, extortion and money laundering in the logistics and agri-food sectors). Significant, in this context, is the ‘Jackpot’ operation of 20 March 2023, with which the Guardia di Finanza of Foggia carried out a precautionary order against 13 people held responsible for criminal conspiracy aimed at fraud in the field of hydrocarbons . At the top of the association were the three brothers from the Orta Nova criminal group. At the same time, a preventive seizure of assets with a total value of 5 million euros was carried out.”
On 18 May 2023, the Dia of Bari and Foggia, together with the Carabinieri of Foggia, gave execution of a measure of asset prevention of confiscation against a top exponent (Michele Scuccimarra, ed) of the Orta Nova criminal group. The value of the confiscated assets amounts to a total of approximately 2.5 million euros, already the subject of an early seizure order carried out in April 2021.
Finally, again based on the relations between the Gaeta clan and the Moretti clan of Foggia, the Dia recalled that “on 3 June 2023, the State Police of Foggia carried out a precautionary measure against a subject attributable to the Orta Nova group and of a relative of the battery reference boss Moretti-Pellegrino-Lanza of Foggia considered, respectively, instigator and material executor of the attempted double murder, never reported, committed in Foggia on 30 September 2020 against two convicted subjects. The bloody incident could be traced back to the dynamics of transversal revenge within the batteries of Foggia society.” The reference is to Andrea Gaeta, 53 year old from Orta Nova and others Nicola Valletta, 38 year old from Foggia, arrested for the double attempted murder of Alessio Di Bari And Ciro Stanchi known as “Big Jim”. Gaeta is the brother-in-law of the Foggia boss, Pasquale Moretti called “The little pig”.
