They robbed gold bars in Matera: two members of the Secondigliano gang sentenced, women acquitted

They were arrested in October 2016 after carrying out a sensational robbery of gold bars from an armored vehicle in Matera. Today, the four Neapolitans on trial received their first-instance sentences, handed down by Panel B of the Matera Court. Raffaele Ferone, 32, from Secondigliano, was sentenced to five years in prison and a €1500 fine; Ivan Cerullo, 41, also from Secondigliano, was sentenced to five years and two months in prison and a €1500 fine. Patrizia Avolio, 43, from Miano and sister of the much more notorious Francesco Avolio, known as Tyson, a dangerous hitman in the service of the Secondigliano Alliance, and 30-year-old Ivana Salvati were acquitted for not having committed the crime. The sensational robbery, which netted €250,000, took place on October 18, 2016. The four men had arrived from Naples by car, and the two men, as reconstructed during the trial, dropped off the two women and carried out the robbery before picking them up. Avolio and Salvati, meanwhile, were about to take the bus back to Naples because they had been abandoned by their two friends and relatives. The testimony of a woman who witnessed the robbery, called to testify by lawyers Danilo Volpe and Fabio Greco of the Naples Bar Association for Patrizia Avolio, and by lawyer Antonio Uricchio for Ivana Salvati, debunked the charges against the two women. These accusations were made to investigators by the same security guard who had been robbed. As demonstrated during the trial, however, the two women were not present at the scene of the robbery, nor were they aware that the two friends had carried out the robbery. The robbery had been carried out solely by Ferone and Cerullo. At the time, Avolio was also wearing a therapeutic brace for an injury sustained in a traffic accident and was unable to run or make sudden movements. The Lancia Musa with the four passengers on board was intercepted by the Carabinieri shortly after the robbery along the SP.1 highway, between Grassano and Tricarico. The 15 stolen gold bars had been hidden inside the rear spaces of the front seats. And today, nearly two years after the robbery, the first-instance verdict was delivered.