The six-monthly report (January-June 2020) of the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate certified the permanence of the strong roots and the operation of the Casalesi Clan in the Caserta area.
Although the historic bosses have been in prison for years, the DIA (Italian Anti-Mafia Investigation Department) has not found the criminal groups of the leading families—the Schiavone, Zagaria, and Bidognetti—to have disintegrated or destabilized. The Casalesi clans, in addition to operating the "usual" activities of extortion, loan sharking, drug trafficking, and illegal gambling and betting, are increasingly organizing themselves, based on data analysis, in new ways of operating, focusing on strengthening relationships with that gray area of public administration and business. According to the DIA, the lack of homicides has become a distinctive feature of the Casalesi clan, the result of a specific strategic choice. The semiannual report highlights the Schiavone faction's leadership within the cartel. Furthermore, the use of narcotics trafficking and sale is increasingly common, a field that in the past, from the Casalesi's strategic perspective, was only occasionally contemplated.
The gang would continue, according to the analysis, to operate in the management of public contracts and in the agri-food sector. The latter is of great interest also for the Zagaria group of Casapesenna, which is considered by the DIA as the one that best represents the so-called "business clan", being able to occupy, according to the report, almost in a monopoly regime, entire economic sectors.
But, according to the six-monthly report of the DIA, in addition to the Casalesi there are other solid and active Camorra factions in the Caserta area. The Belforte clan represents one of the most deeply rooted Camorra groups for years and active in the territory of Marcianise, in the capital, as well as, through 'satellite' groups in the municipalities of San Nicola la Strada, San Marco Evangelista, Casagiove, Recale, Macerata Campania, San Prisco, Maddaloni and San Felice a Cancello. A criminal group that has shown, from the data, a renewed interest in drug trafficking. Like the Casalesi, according to the DIA report, they too are supported by subservient entrepreneurs. Remaining in the same territorial area, the operation of small family-structured groups is also highlighted such as the Menditti clan present in Recale and San Prisco; the Bifone in Macerata Campania, Portico di Caserta, Casapulla, Curti, Casagiove and San Prisco. In the district of San Felice a Cancello, Santa Maria a Vico and Arienzo a group is operating that is a derivation of the Massaro family. In Santa Maria Capua Vetere the Del Gaudio-Bellagiò group and the antagonist Fava are said to be present, significantly weakened by the choice of collaborating with justice undertaken by prominent affiliates.
In the area of the municipalities of Pignataro Maggiore, Vitulazio and Sparanise, the Ligato clan remains active. In the context of Sparanise, Calvi Risorta and Teano, the Papa family is active, through its own contacts. In Mondragone, the criminal presence of the Gagliardi-Fragnoli-Pagliuca cartel (heirs of the La Torre clan), close to the Bidognettti family, remains. In the municipalities of Sessa Aurunca, Cellole, Carinola, Falciano del Massico and Roccamonfina, the action of contrast against the Esposito clan, known as the 'Muzzuni', continues. The area of Castel Volturno, according to the DIA, is heavily contaminated by the presence of the Bidognetti clan (Casalesi), and is considered the expression of the coexistence between Camorra organizations and Nigerian-Ghanaian crime, becoming a point of reference for international drug trafficking and the massive management of street prostitution.
These foreign associations have acquired control of some stretches of the Domitian coast. Albanian crime has also acquired a leading position in the Caserta panorama. The six-monthly report also highlights the presence of gangs from Eastern Europe, active in the sectors of exploitation of prostitution, robberies and extortion with the so-called return horse system.
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