villa bunker zagaria, demolition
– It was dawn on December 7, 2011 when investigators from the Naples and Caserta mobile squad raided the family home of Vincenzo Inquieto (later convicted with his wife Rosaria Massa for aiding and abetting), in via Mascagni in Casapesenna, in the province of Caserta.
It was there that, after hours of searching and hitting pickaxes, breaking down various walls, the Casalesi boss, Michele Zagaria, surrendered and was captured, a period of fugitiveism that lasted for over a decade.
“Enough, don’t break through, I’m here. I surrender” were the first words of Zagaria, fearful of dying of suffocation after the agents had cut off the electricity, consequently disabling the ventilation system that served the bunker.
The Casalesi boss, who controlled his empire by communicating through a series of 'intercoms' whose network extended over a large part of the town, and who controlled the area through a sophisticated video surveillance system whose 'heart' was in an attic of the villa, could access the rest of the house through a staircase that connected the underground bunker with a small room where an electrical device had been placed that allowed the floor to be moved, allowing a trap door to be opened.
The villa, seized immediately after Zagaria's capture and acquired by the municipality, will now be demolished, and the bunker will be covered over, to allow the construction of a public park. The project, the result of an agreement between the Ministry of the Interior and the Campania Region, which financed the intervention, will be carried out by specialized units of the national fire brigade, supported by the in-house company Sma Campania.
The demolition began in the presence of Minister Matteo Piantedosi and the President of the Region, Vincenzo De Luca. The mystery of the heart-shaped pen drive, which was allegedly found in the bunker at the time of the arrest and which never appeared in the seizure reports, casting a shadow over the capture of the boss, remains unsolved.
A shadow amplified by a blackout of about thirty minutes in the footage shot by the policemen who entered the bunker. There is in fact a strange interval between the footage of the descent into the bunker and the following one, in which we see the owner of the hideout packing his bags and a policeman passing clothes to Zagaria while he is in the bathroom. For that incident, a policeman is on trial.
"Today is an epochal day because Casapesenna is no longer the town of Zagaria, but of the people of Casapesenna. After so many black pages written in this territory we are finally celebrating a page of legality and synergy with the State".
This was stated by the mayor of Casapesenna, Marcello De Rosa, to journalists outside the house on Via Mascagni where the head of the Casalesi, Michele Zagaria, was captured on 7 December 2011, after 15 years on the run, and where demolition work will begin this morning.
“The arrival of Minister Piantedosi, the President of the Region and many representatives of the institutions – he added – it fills our hearts with joy and makes us feel the State is close to us”.
Article published by Gustavo Gentile on February 16, 2023, at 11:50 AM
An expert in diplomatic and international law, he has worked in the publishing and communications industries for over 30 years. He has served as a representative of local publishers in FIEG, as Director of Canale 10, and as General Manager of Centro Stampa srl. He has a keen understanding of the Caserta area.
Leave a comment