Naples - There is an invisible thread that links the alleys of Scampia to the high, cold walls of the prison SecondiglianoA thread made of technology, money, and criminal loyalty.
It's the story of the Camorra's drones, the new frontier of drug trafficking behind bars.
The first to reveal the details of this system is Raffaele Paone, known as Rafaniello, a former man of the Vanella-Grassi He became a collaborator of justice in 2024. His statements, deemed "genuine, straightforward, and free of defamatory intent" by several rulings of the Court of Naples, were at the center of one of the most sensational investigations of recent years: the one that led to the precautionary order against Nico Grimaldi and other associates, accused of having created a criminal network to smuggle drugs and cell phones into the Secondigliano prison through the systematic use of drones.
The Sky System: How the Camorra Flies
These were not isolated or improvised incidents. From the intercepts and testimonies collected, a structured method emerges, planned with almost military precision.
The drones took off in the evening hours from fields or abandoned parking lots around the penitentiary. They were piloted by expert operators, often young people from the neighborhood, recruited for their expertise with technological devices.
The cargo—small packages containing cocaine, hashish, and cell phones—was secured with tape to the drone's body, which flew low to avoid cameras and hovered over the sections of clan-affiliated inmates. There, using improvised ropes, the contents were retrieved with hooks or homemade sticks.
A system as rudimentary as it was effective, which allowed the inmates to be supplied and kept intact their ties with the outside world.
The role of the Grimaldis and the shadow of Vanella
According to Rafaniello, the network operated "under the aegis of the Vanella-Grassi clan," specifically the Grimaldi group, active between San Pietro a Patierno and Secondigliano.
Behind the flight logistics were Nico Grimaldi, already known to the judicial news, and several accomplices who handled the technical equipment, supplies, and payments.
"It was a perfect machine," Rafaniello explains in the reports. "Everyone had a role: some threw, some recovered, some took care of the money, and some took care of maintenance. Everyone knew when to start and when to stop. In prison, the bosses communicated with the outside world via cell phones that came from above, continuing to rule as if they were free."
A prison that is no longer enough
The investigation of DDA clearly demonstrated a disturbing phenomenon: prisons are no longer a barrier for the Camorra.
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The airborne drug and phone trafficking in Secondigliano has confirmed that Campania's organized crime never stops evolving, adapting to security measures and exploiting every possible opening.
Investigations coordinated by the anti-mafia team allowed them to reconstruct the flights, identify the operators, and seize state-of-the-art drones, equipped with high-definition cameras and modified GPS systems. But despite the arrests, the system never completely stopped.
"When one drone was intercepted, another would appear within two days," says an investigative source. "The pilots change, but the money and orders keep flowing."
Rafaniello, the voice that breaks the silence
Rafaniello's credibility, already established by several court rulings, is one of the central elements of this investigation.
Already convicted for membership in the Vanella-Grassi clan, he was intimately familiar with the inner workings and logic of power. Even from prison, as he himself admitted, he used cell phones to communicate daily with both free and incarcerated members.
Once the collaboration began, in May 2024, his words allowed investigators to connect the dots: the squares of Scampia, the drones over Secondigliano, the money traveling hidden in encrypted accounts.
Drones: The New Era of the Camorra
The Vanella-Grassi drones aren't just an episode: they represent a new phase in Neapolitan organized crime, where technology is becoming a fully-fledged instrument of power.
Prison control, management of the squares, and the ability to communicate in real time with the incarcerated bosses outline a scenario in which the boundary between inside and outside no longer exists.
And in this new scenario, men like Rafaniello—witnesses of two worlds, that of silence and that of the spoken word—become indispensable keys to understanding how the Camorra continues to reinvent itself, even within the most guarded walls of Italy.
Comments (1)
The article presents a very complex and disturbing situation: drones and their use by the Camorra represent a serious problem. But it's also important to consider how authorities are responding to these modern challenges in the fight against organized crime.