Secondigliano Alliance, a pact of blood and family: at the top the bosses Mallardo, Contini and Maria Licciardi 'a piccerella

The Secondigliano Alliance is organized like a mafia dome: at the top of the organization are Francesco Mallardo, Edoardo Contini, and Maria Licciardi, aka "a piccerella," who escaped capture this morning in the ROS raid that resulted in the arrest of over 100 members of the criminal organization. The criminal organization's leadership is also strengthened by a family connection: Mallardo, Contini, and Patrizio Bosti are married to the three Aieta sisters: Maria, Rita, and Anna.
The investigations coordinated by the Naples DDA have allowed to document "authentic meetings at the top of the mafia cartel". The "indisputable management functions were in the hands of the figures who historically promoted it" explained this morning the prosecutor Giovanni Melillo "Francesco Mallardo, Edoardo Contini and Maria Licciardi". The maxi operation that allowed to inflict a hard blow to the Camorra, in particular to the 'Secondigliano Alliance', the investigators underline, was possible thanks to a long investigation with wiretaps, observations, shadowing and also by making use of the statements of some collaborators of justice. The investigation has allowed to ascertain the operation of the Contini clan, allied with the Mallardo and Licciardi clans, in the center of Naples and in particular in the Vasto and Arenaccia neighborhoods and in the areas of San Giovanniello, Borgo di Sant'Antonio Abate and Ponti Rossi. The leading role and the operational capacity of the historical leaders, including Eduardo Contini, Patrizio Bosti, Francesco Mallardo, Maria Licciardi and the wives of the first three, the sisters Maria, Rita and Anna Aieta, have been confirmed, also due to their detention in prison.
The criminal organization – according to investigators – continued its criminal activities with an organizational model inherited from the Camorra of Carmine Alfieri in the 80s. According to the Carabinieri, the organization exercised with mafia methods “a very vast control over thirty years” not only in territorial terms, having over time embraced, through alliances with other criminal groups, almost the entire metropolitan area of ​​Naples, but also in all those legal sectors of business, trade and investment that have proven to be the most profitable.