Villa Literno – The setting sun yesterday afternoon, October 15, illuminated a scene worthy of environmental crime news: Carabinieri from the local station, shoulder to shoulder with experts from ARPAC Campania, burst into an industrial warehouse on the edge of Villa Literno, in the tormented heart of the Agro Aversano.
What was supposed to be a routine check turns into an explosion of irregularities: illegal management of hazardous waste, piles of metal scraps abandoned without any criteria, toxic fumes free to poison the air.
The result? The entire company premises—a maze of workshops and warehouses spanning thousands of square meters—ends up under criminal seizure, and the owner, a 37-year-old former sole director of a company specializing in window and door frames, is charged at large. A blow to the chest for the eco-mafia that, for decades, has suffocated this land on the border between Caserta and Naples, where Vesuvius seems to be looking the other way.
The operation, launched as part of a broader campaign against the dumping and uncontrolled storage of poisons, stemmed from anonymous reports from exasperated residents: acrid odors, streams of metal waste seeping into the soil, and a suspicious coming and going of vans loaded with waste.
The military wastes no time: at 4:00 PM sharp, with technicians from the Regional Environmental Protection Agency on the front lines, they enter the rusty factory gates. What emerges is a bleak picture, straight out of a textbook ecological disaster.
Waste from iron and steel processing—both hazardous, such as welding residues with toxic paints, and non-hazardous—lies piled up in bulk, without even the slightest separation by type, in complete violation of Legislative Decree 152/2006 on the waste cycle.
No loading and unloading records, zero identification forms: an administrative black hole that exposes the company to staggering fines, up to 150 euros for mismanagement alone.
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The inspection, which continued until sunset with flashlights and Geiger counters to measure contamination, revealed further regulatory gaps. In the welding areas—the beating heart of aluminum and PVC window and door production—there were no fume hoods: fine dust and metal fumes spread freely, a lethal cocktail for workers' lungs and the neighborhood air.
And what about atmospheric emissions? A mirage: it lacks the Integrated Environmental Permit (IPPC), the ministerial approval that should ensure the plant doesn't turn the sky into an open-air incinerator.
The 37-year-old, a well-known face in the village for his artisan business, founded about ten years ago, defends himself by stammering about "bureaucratic errors," but the evidence is overwhelming: reports, photos, and soil samples taken for laboratory analysis.
This raid isn't a bolt from the blue, but yet another step in a relentless war against the "eco-mafias" plaguing Campania. Villa Literno, a bastion of the Land of Fires—that triangle of fire and poison between Acerra, Caserta, and the Agro Aversano area, only formally cleared up after the 2013 scandal—is fertile ground for this trafficking.
According to Legambiente's 2025 report on eco-mafias, the province of Caserta recorded a 15% increase in environmental crimes compared to 2024, with industrial waste such as metal often diverted to illegal landfills to save on legal disposal costs.
It's no coincidence that just in September, the Carabinieri Forestry Corps dismantled a network of illegal dumping sites in Succivo, just a stone's throw from here, seizing 200 tons of plastic waste. And what about Villa Literno?
Last year, a similar operation led to the arrest of three accomplices in a spent battery trafficking ring, with suspected ties to local clans. The investigation, coordinated by the Prosecutor's Office of North Naples, has not ruled out darker leads: opaque financing or collusion with industry "consultants" who turn a blind eye to permits. For residents, it's a sigh of relief mixed with anger.
Comments (1)
It's incredible that in an area like Villa Literno, there are still such serious problems involving hazardous waste. I wonder how the authorities didn't do anything before this operation. The situation is truly worrying and needs to be addressed urgently.