Former penitent Salvatore Coppola killed by someone he knew: murder under the cameras

There are images from the public cameras of via Protopisani in San Giovanni a Teduccio, those of the supermarket but also of other shops in the area. The men of the mobile squad of Napoli they've been scanning them frame by frame since last night.

We are looking for all possible clues to give a face and a name to the engineer's killers. Salvatore Coppola, 66 years old, former collaborator of justice man of the "sack of eastern Naples" killed with a single gunshot to the face.

A signal, a trademark of the Camorra. He who for a dozen years with revelations had had Camorra members and white collar workers linked to the arrested Mazzarella clan e Sarno (who at the time controlled the whole neighborhood) authors of millionaire property speculations.

He had returned to live in what he considered his neighborhood. He had also opened a studio a few steps from where he was killed. Investigators also traced and verified all the telephone traffic of his smartphone and his office computer.

We are looking for any messages, emails, phone calls with someone. Whoever killed him knew his movements but probably also knew him because Salvatore Coppola, has left his car unlocked a few meters from where he was killed. Inside, a piece of bread, newspapers, cigarettes, and a lighter.

 He left his car unlocked with cigarettes and a piece of bread inside.

And so it's likely that he was inside and went out to meet someone who called him, perhaps on the phone, or perhaps by word of mouth. But the engineer unknowingly met his death.

Arrested in 2009 by the Naples Financial Police as part of an operation on usury and money laundering, Coppola also testified at the trial on the Camorra's infiltration into the capital's business fabric.

It was during that trial that he revealed to the judges that he had, in the past, also had contacts with the Mazzarella clan, a criminal organization that in the Neapolitan capital opposes the criminal federation called the "Secondigliano Alliance."

Although the killer acted with intent to kill and in a manner typical of the Camorra, the Naples Flying Squad has not ruled out other personal leads.

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