Naples, 100 tons of mussels seized in Santa Lucia

Naples, 100 tons of mussels seized in Santa Lucia. The seafood sold at retail could generate around 300 thousand euros of illicit profit

In the last few hours, the military personnel of the Naval Air Operations Department of the Guardia di Finanza of Naples have seized two illegal mussel farming facilities near the commercial port of the Campania capital that were illegally occupying a large portion of the maritime state property that extended to the nearby Santa Lucia roadstead.

Approximately 100 tons of seafood already ripe and ready to be put directly on the market without any certification that could attest to its origin and compliance with health regulations on traceability and healthiness.

The investigations of the Guardia di Finanza have revealed a connection between the business of managing the two illegal mussel farming plants and the activities attributable to one of the criminal groups involved in the investigation, conducted by the same financial police, which recently led to the application of 19 precautionary measures against as many individuals, for environmental disaster linked to the indiscriminate harvesting of sea dates in the Gulf of Naples.

The large quantity found, which at retail could generate an illicit profit estimated at over €300.000, in addition to causing serious harm to the health of end consumers, would certainly have polluted the legal economy and free competition in a strategic economic sector such as the trade of fish products.

The new intervention by the sea police follows in time a similar one in July 2019, when two more illegal mussel farms were uprooted from the seabed just outside the commercial port, and the other more recent one that led to the seizure of more than two tons of seafood and fish during Holy Week at the fish markets of Mugnano di Napoli and Salerno.

Due to the characteristics of their positioning in the sea and considering their completely illegal nature, these installations could have also caused a serious obstacle to the safety of navigation of ships and boats in transit in the Gulf of Naples. Both nurseries, in fact, were located a few centimetres below the sea surface and did not comply with any of the technical signalling requirements.

Failure to comply with all health and hygiene provisions required the immediate intervention of the staff of the veterinary inspection service of the ASL of Naples who took care of sampling the mussels for subsequent microbiological and chemical analyses aimed at highlighting the potential danger of the products for public health.

The constant presence of naval units and areas of the Naval Air Operations Department of the Financial Police of Naples, which operate to fulfill the institutional tasks of economic-financial police and maritime police along the Campania coast, guarantees not only the prevention and repression of illicit conduct in general but also a rapid response presence, always for the protection of citizens and the legal economy.

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