Castellammare - The boss's plan to stop the war. To prevent a new Camorra conflict from inflaming the streets of Castellammare di Stabia, Pasquale D'Alessandro — heir to the historic criminal dynasty of the same name — would have chosen a brutal but, in his world, effective solution: “feeding” two of his men to the rival clan.
A gesture not of submission but of criminal diplomacy. The goal was to calm the group's anger. By Somma-Lucarelli, powerful articulation of the Old Center, which for years has been freed from the hegemony of the D'Alessandros and was the protagonist, in the early 2000s, of a bloody feud.
That war had left two important names on the field: Joseph Verdoliva, known as Peppe the driver, the late godfather's historic right-hand man Michael D'Alessandro, and Antonio Martone, brother-in-law of the boss and uncle of the current regent Pasquale. Deaths that, in the code of honor of the Stabia clans, are not forgotten. At the time, the parents of Di Somma and Lucarelli allied themselves with the Cutoliani Scarpa and Omobono just to oust the D'Alessandros. This was unsuccessful, despite the high number of deaths.
The fire raid that rekindles hatred
An episode that occurred in May 2024 had caused tensions to flare up again.
Two young loyalists of the D'Alessandros, Gaetano Cavallaro, 28 years old, and Catello Manuel Spagnuolo, 25 years old, had opened fire on the car of Raffaele Lucarelli, one of the leaders of the rival group. Lucarelli was traveling with his pregnant partner: an act considered sacrilegious even by the ruthless rules of the Camorra.
The raid failed, but it was enough to rekindle old grudges. The Centro Antico group threatened revenge again. And so Pasquale D'Alessandro, aware of the firepower and ferocity of the Di Somma-Lucarellis, decided to move ahead.
The “beating pact”
D'Alessandro, together with his cousin and Paul Carolei, reportedly reached an agreement with Giacomo Di Somma and Raffaele Lucarelli: to hand over Cavallaro and Spagnuolo so that they would suffer an "exemplary punishment".
A rite of reparative revenge, performed in silence, to end the match without bloodshed.
The beating was supervised by Massimo Mirano, called 'o maccarone, and Giovanni D'Alessandro, cousin of the boss. The two would have been tasked with accompanying the "condemned" to the meeting and ensuring the revenge followed the agreed-upon script: no deaths, but serious injuries, capable of scarring the two boys for life and sending a clear message.
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The beating and the staging of the accident
According to the investigators' reconstruction, the beating was carried out with ferocious methods.
When Cavallaro and Spagnuolo arrived at the San Leonardo Hospital in Castellammare, they said they had been involved in a car accident. But the doctors, faced with the severity and nature of their injuries, didn't believe a word of it.
The medical report reveals shocking details:
Gaetano Cavallaro reported “complete avulsion of the second and third phalanges of the left index finger, with loss of bone substance, basal fracture of the fourth finger of the left hand and compound fracture of the nasal bones”.
Catello Manuel Spagnuolo he presented “concussive head trauma, fractured nasal bones, lacerated-contused wounds to the face”.
"Tailor-made" wounds, as agreed upon between the clans: serious, but not fatal. A carefully calibrated, almost surgical beating, to end a dispute before it escalated into war.
A message to the world below
The episode, now reconstructed in the documents of the investigation that led to the arrest of boss Pasquale D'Alessandro and nine other affiliates, demonstrates a rare example of criminal diplomacy.
In the Camorra code, violence can also be an instrument of peace: punishing one's men to avoid a bloodier conflict.
Pasquale D'Alessandro, fearing the revenge of the Di Somma-Lucarelli clan, chose to sacrifice two pawns to save his clan. A gesture that, in the perverse logic of the Camorra system, sounds like a sign of strength and control.
But behind that "beating pact" remain two disfigured young men and a territory still gripped by ancient Camorra alliances and unhealed wounds.
Comments (1)
The article discusses a dramatic event in the Castellammare Camorra. Pasquale D'Alessandro's decision appears to have been made to avoid major conflicts, but it leaves many questions about what will happen in the future with the clans.