Naples. A Campania regional official also turned to the Camorra to collect a debt owed to a friend by an associate. This emerges from the investigation documents relating to the major joint raid coordinated by the Naples prosecutor's office, carried out yesterday against the so-called "Secondigliano Alliance." Both are listed among 214 people under investigation. The man, now 65, recommended this blatantly criminal shortcut in 2013 to a friend, now 55, who worked for the region despite not being an employee. The 55-year-old was owed a considerable sum (€5-600, according to a repentant criminal, paid out by the region). The events, which appear to be attempted extortion, occurred in the Caserta area and are documented through a series of wiretapped conversations while several of the criminals involved, all high-ranking, were in their cars. This behavior was harshly criticized in the order by Naples investigating judge Roberto D'Auria: "The information gathered during the investigation is absolutely unequivocal regarding the 'Camorra-style' approach by which the creditor, on the advice of his friend (the official), attempted to collect the debt owed..." The defendant is Vincenzo Tolomelli, a high-ranking member of the Contini clan (recipient of a precautionary prison order). Tolomelli has no power in that particular area between Caserta and Naples, but demonstrates ties to the local criminal underworld, which is being approached and implicated, in a "convergence of interests" perspective, the investigating judge writes in the order. A professional, employed by the debtor, is also beaten in the street by members of the clan in an attempt to intimidate his employer. The attempted extortion is confirmed by the statements made to investigators by a cooperating witness, and, the judge explains, "there are serious indications of guilt for all the suspects." "The matter appears particularly serious," the judge wrote, "when one considers the institutional context" in which the creditor and his friend, the regional official, operated, "from whom one might therefore expect even a minimal sense of institutionalism."
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