According to the Naples Public Prosecutor's Office, the mastermind of the "black market" of sea dates in Naples and the province was Pasquale Amato, known as "o' Palumbaro", 57 years old, who is among the six people for whom the investigating judge Egle Pilla has ordered prison.
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One of his last photos on his Facebook profile shows him while he is busy arranging the sea dates with a collaborator. The activity, that of collecting and marketing the mollusc, carried out with two cousins and as the owner of a well-known fish shop located in Secondigliano, on the outskirts of Naples. In the seven months of telephone interception, the investigators documented 78 "illegal transactions" that saw traders (who in turn sold them), restaurants, villas for ceremonies, retail consumers as buyers. Not only that. The suspect was also found to be the owner of endless illegal mussel fields, placed in the maritime state property, outside the port of Naples, which he put up for sale without a health check. Pasquale Amato, again according to the investigators, also enjoyed the collaboration of public officials who warned him during checks or inspections. The dives to collect 'sea dates' always took place at night and on the surface, on board the vessel, there was always someone left to act as a 'lookout'.
THE NAPLES GROUP AND THE CASTELLAMMARE GROUP
Two groups, both with a family structure, who collaborated during the times of greatest demand for the product. These are the ones discovered by an investigation by prosecutor's office of Naples which led the investigating judge Egle Pilla to issue a precautionary measure against 19 suspects, even though the initial request, after investigations by the Guardia di Finanza, concerned 25 people. More than the names, the nicknames in the list drawn up by the investigators are striking: Pasquale alias 'o palombaro, Gennaro called Genny 'o purpitiello, but also 'o capone, Pinuccio, don Michele, zi' Peppe, 'o principe and Enzuccio. They are responsible for environmental devastation in the Gulf of Naples, including the Faraglioni of Capri, in search of a mollusc that can be worth up to 200 euros per kilo during the Christmas and Easter periods. A considerable profit that does not at all compensate for the devastation of the ecosystem caused to fish the date mussel, so much so that finding it by splitting the rock has been illegal since 1988.
The lithophaga lithophaga is a bivalve for which everything is forbidden, from killing, to disturbing underwater habitats, to collecting, to trading, to using for profit. It was caught with “intensive and habitual capture” trips, writes the investigating judge, practiced “in a professional, organized and systemic way”, probably for twenty years, by these two organizations. In the wiretaps that lasted only seven months, Pasquale Amato, 56, known as 'o palombaro, the leader of one of the two groups, told the other Pasquale Amato, one year younger, known as o'principe, on the phone that he had sold over 2 quintals of the mollusc on the black market. The wiretaps themselves indicate at least 78 illicit transactions in the period in which the conversations of the association were listened to. It was precisely 'o palombaro who coordinated the activities of the group between Naples, and the distribution of the catch in Quarto, Villa Literno, Volla, Castel Volturno, Sant'Antimo, Pozzuoli, Giuliano and Bacoli. The ones who actually fished in the port of Naples were his cousins, the namesake and one year younger, and his brother, Vincenzo Amato, 50 years old, owner of a commercial premises in Secondigliano in via del Cassano in whose warehouse the fished product was hidden before being sold.
HELP FROM CASTELLAMMARE'S FRIENDS
Being helped between April and June 2019 by the other group that was headed by Catello Avella and had Castellammare and Capri as its area of activity. 'O palombaro had the help of public officials who would have warned him of any control and inspection operations. 'O principe, then, was the armed wing of the group, and was together with his brother Vincenzo, the material destroyer of the cliffs of the port of Naples, from the San Vincenzo pier to the San Giovanni pier, an area extending for 12 km, diving daily at night for at least the last 20 years. Among the recipients of the precautionary measure also an employee of the company that manages the Capri funicular, one who is in service at Asia in Naples and who has specific precedents since 2005, an employee of the ASL Napoli 1 center; together with Gennaro Fiume, or Genny 'o purpetiello, they had the role of intermediaries between the group and the buyers and regular consumers of sea dates.
Then there is the de facto owner of the fish market in Naples, the Ostricaro, who was a constant recipient of the molluscs and a stable member of the criminal association. The compromise of the areas in which these two gangs operated, studied by experts chosen by the prosecution, sees 66% for the San Giovanni pier, 53% for the San Vincenzo pier which also includes the Molosiglio, areas in which the density of the populations of removed sea dates reaches maximum values that vary from 813 to 1783 individuals for every square meter, determining the structural and functional imbalance of the habitat, Not even 48% of the faraglioni in Capri The other group, that of Castellammare-Capri for over 25 years has hammered the rock with "continuous and incessant cadence", irreversibly altering the balance of the marine ecosystem.
THE TIP-OFF OF THE FINANCIAL POLICE BLITZ
On July 19, 2019 at 7:54 a.m. Pasquale Amato 'o palombaro calls his cousin who is busy looking for dates to warn him that there will be a raid by the Guardia di Finanza: "Enzuccio throw dates into the sea, hammers, throw everything you have because you have an operation on you that you have no hair on your head". "Yes, we have them under us, here next door", the answer. "I've been calling you since this morning what do you want from me and that's fine", the other closes. That day the soldiers embarked on the coast guard G117 seized all the equipment. Just as on October 12 of the same year the phone call arrives at the fish market.
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“Close the tanks because there is a blitz by the Finance Police”, the alarm raised by the boss, but there is still a seizure at the Ostricaro in via Santa Maria Loreto. Catello Avella begins his collaboration with Pasquale Amato in the spring of 2019 for a period of temporary absence from Naples of Vincenzo Amato; a moment in which one of the two illegal date collectors is missing but product is needed because the demand continues to be high. The two main representatives of the criminal groups meet in Castellammare di Stabia to carry out the exchange previously agreed on the phone. On April 14, 2019, for example, Avella says he had to leave the seafood postponing the meeting to the next day, and they meet on Saturday at 9:30 “in the usual place”. The exchange takes place on the state road 145 la Sorrentina in the space in front of a commercial activity. The finance police then monitor and block Pasquale Amato on the A1 motorway junction. He has 6 kilos of sea dates, the ones he just received from Catello Avella, inside a bag in the trunk of his Fiat Doblo'.
Mayor Capri: 'Finally a stop to illegal fishing'
“The major intervention by the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Guardia di Finanza will finally put a stop to this illegal fishing that has been destroying our ecosystem and a natural habitat of extraordinary beauty for decades”. This is how the mayor of Capri, Marino Lembo, commented on the operation by the Guardia di Finanza that culminated with 19 precautionary measures for the collection of 'sea dates'. The representative of Legambiente Nabil Pulita also applauded the operation by the police and the Public Prosecutor's Office: “We are faced with a real environmental emergency, pirates who are unscrupulously destroying the most beautiful coasts of our seas. An appeal to consumers: ordering a plate of linguine with dates at a restaurant or buying them at a fishmonger's is illegal”. The councillor for the establishment of the marine protected area of the Municipality of Capri, Paola Mazzina, underlined: “I point the finger at the continuous attack that the marine territory is subjected to and the unscrupulous aggressions that are carried out by these real criminals of the sea against. It becomes even more urgent - continues Mazzina - the establishment of the marine protected area of the island of Capri which represents a definitive response to counter the various forms of aggression that our coasts suffer. My Department will propose to the Council to constitute itself as a civil party in the criminal trial that will see the poachers in the dock".
THE INVESTIGATED
1. AMATO Pasquale, alias “O' Palumbaro”, born in Naples on 19.09.1964;
2. AMATO Mario, born in Naples on 20.12.1968;
3. AMATO Vincenzo di Mario, alias “Enzuccio”, born in Naples 02.08.1990;
4. AMATO Vincenzo di Salvatore (1967), born in Naples on 2L05.1998;
5. AMATO Vincenzo, born in Naples on 14.12.1970;
6. AMATO Pasquale, alias “O' Principe”, born in Naples on 20.08.1965;
7. AMATO Salvatore, born in Naples on 04.11.1964;
8. BALDO Francesco, alias “Baldi”, born in Aversa (CE) on 07.02.1967;
9. ON SATURDAY Ciro, born in Naples on 21;
10. POLLASTRO Antonio, born in Naples on 31.10.1964,
11. FIUME Gennaro, alias “Genny 0′ Purptiell”, born in Naples on 30.10.1984;
12. BUONOCORE Giuseppe, alias “Zi Peppe”, born in Naples on 22.09.1946;
13. BUONOCORE Michele, alias “Don Michè”, born in Naples on 22.09.1946;
14. AVELLA Catello, alias “Zi Bacc”, born in Castellammare di Stabia (NA) on 02.07.1971;
15. VIOLA Giuseppe, born in Castellammare di Stabia (NA) on 01.07.1955;
16. VIOLA Elpidio, born in Castellanunare di Stabia (NA) on 06.01.1968;
17. VIOLA Catello, born in Vico Equense (NA) on 19.02.1990;
18. DONNARUMMA Luciano, born in Castellammare di Stabia (NA) on 11.07.1983;
19. AULETTA Luigi, alias “O' Capone”, born in Castellammare di Stabia (NA) on 05.04.1969;
20. TESTA Giuseppe, alias “Pinuccio”, born in Naples on 12.03.1984;
21. GUARINO Pasquale, born in Castellammare di Stabia (NA) on 06.06.1956;
22. LIBERO Salvatore, born in Castellammare di Stabia (NA) on 17.02.1960;
23. CILIBERTI Riccardo, born in Naples on 21;
24. ESPOSITO Angelo, born in Naples on 04 August 1980;
25. POLITO Lucio, born in Castellammare di Stabia (NA) on 06.11.1967.
Article published on March 23, 2021 - 22pm
