Naples - Vincenzo Giovanni Lucci Percich, known as Jhonny, 19, is the gunman of Piazza Carolina. The young scion of the Spanish Quarter, son of mafia boss Salvatore, who has been in prison for several months along with another minor son and three other accomplices accused of the murder of innocent soccer player Umberto Catanzaro, is unaccounted for.
According to investigators, Johnny Percich is the leader of the gang of young Camorristi from the Quartieri neighborhoods, which opposes those in Piazza Carolina. He's been missing for a few days after a vacation in Barcelona with his girlfriend, and had also planned a trip to Amsterdam for January 16th.
The motives for the armed clash between two young gangs linked to the Camorra networks of the Spanish Quarters and Pallonetto di Santa Lucia, who are competing for control of the drug dealing hubs between Piazza Carolina, Via Chiaia, and the Piazza Plebiscito area in Naples, are at the center of an investigation by the Naples Flying Squad, which has culminated in seven arrests, including five minors and two adults.
One is gunman Johnny Percich, pictured with two pistols in his hand, firing at his opponents in Piazza Carolina, and the other is his accomplice Carlo Forte. The theater is the city's monumental living room, transformed into a battlefield by kids between 15 and 17 who act like adult gangsters: multiple weapons, premeditation, scooter raids, and retaliatory shots.
Two baby fishing boats for the center of Naples
All contained in the approximately 100 pages of the arrest warrant for four minors signed by prosecutor Ugo Miraglia Del Giudice of the Naples Juvenile Prosecutor's Office. It speaks of two opposing groups. On one side, the "Quartieri Spagnoli" block, led by the adult Percich Lucci Vincenzo Giovanni, known as "Jhonny", with Forte Carlo and the minors ML and AF, both born in 2010, classified by investigators as an armed commando in full Camorra style. On the other, the "Pallonetto-Santa Lucia" front, which is led by the minors MC (2009), GP (2008) and their ally MP, who will turn 18 this summer, identified as the boys from Piazza Carolina who guard the seafront between Via Santa Lucia and Via Gennaro Serra.
Investigators place these young gangs within a dynamic of territorial control. It's no coincidence that the armed raid in Piazza Carolina isn't seen as a simple personal settling of scores, but as an exemplary action to reassert control over the drug dealing hubs in the area of Piazza Plebiscito, Via Chiaia, and Salita Sant'Anna di Palazzo.
The night of December 12th: the commando on the two scooters
According to the Flying Squad's reconstruction, it all began on the night of December 12, 2025, shortly after 1:30 AM. Private security cameras in Vico Cariati and Vico San Sepolcro captured the preparatory phase: Johnny Percich, Carlo Forte, ML, and AF met at the corner of the Quartieri district, where they recovered a stolen white Sym scooter and a dark Beverly.
The footage shows a rehearsed choreography: a scooter leaves the area around Forte's home, reaches Vico Caricatoio, where Johnny lives, picks him up as a passenger, and then returns to the pick-up point. Shortly thereafter, the two minors appear, dressed in black, with full-face helmets and caps, their hands in their pockets as if holding weapons. The four split between the two vehicles—Johnny as the passenger on the dark scooter driven by Forte, while the two minors ride on the white Sym—and at approximately 1:46 a.m., they turn onto Via Emanuele De Deo, heading toward the heart of the city.
Over the next nine minutes, city cameras film them in the maze of neighborhoods, in Piazza Trinità degli Spagnoli, Via Girardi, and Montesanto: the passengers already have guns drawn, and they even brandish their weapons at scooters and cars that cross their path after a collision on Via Montesanto.
The images freeze disturbing details: ML brandishing two guns at the same time at chest height, Jhonny displaying a gun in each hand, weapons being passed between the two minors to free their hands and raise the fallen vehicle.
The raid in Piazza Carolina and the firefight
The commando entered the monumental area via Salita Sant'Anna di Palazzo, heading towards Via Chiaia. Two private security cameras recorded the two scooters with four armed men driving past, and the passenger on Johnny's scooter raising his arms parallel to the ground and pointing two pistols in the direction of Via Chiaia. The distance between the shooting point and Piazza Carolina was approximately one hundred meters, a ramp leading to the "Da M." bar and the pedestrian area near the colonnade of Piazza Plebiscito.
At approximately 1:55 a.m., the city's video surveillance system in Piazza Carolina captured the central scene: the two scooters burst through the Via Chiaia gate, proceeded among the youths on foot, and pointed multiple weapons at chest height at the group, in which the two minor enemies, MC and GP, were clearly identifiable. The images show a burst of flame coming from one of Johnny's pistols, while at the same time, the passenger of the white scooter—identified as AF—raised his weapon towards the group.
On the pavement and on the gazebo of the “Da M.” bar, the forensic officers found shell casings of various calibers (9×19 SB, 9 Luger GFL, 6,35 PPU 25 Auto) and an impact hole in the awning, concrete signs of shots fired at close range, in the dead of night but in a place usually crowded with tourists and young people.
For investigators, the plurality of weapons and shots, all aimed at multiple people at chest height, demonstrates both the lethal nature of the action and the animus necandi required to constitute attempted aggravated homicide.
When the two scooters completed their circuit of the square and headed back toward Via Chiaia, the same cameras filmed them as the passengers continued to fire upward, unloading their weapons, and displaying their fire as they ran along Via Gennaro Serra, Via Chiaia, and Salita Sant'Anna di Palazzo. Audio cameras captured at least six shots coming from the area between Piazza Carolina and the entrance to Sant'Anna; additional 9mm shell casings were found on the ground along the escape route.
The response of the "Piazza Carolina boys" and the shooting in front of Johnny's house
The investigation doesn't stop at the raid: it also documents the reaction of the "Pallonetto-Santa Lucia" front. The internal cameras of the Da M. bar film MC, as GP and he seek shelter in the gazebo, grab a small pistol, and a few seconds later fire at least two shots at the fleeing scooters. A .25-caliber Auto PPU shell casing, found about a meter from where the minor was filmed firing, completes the evidence surrounding that small-caliber weapon.
Immediately afterward, the footage shows MC handing the gun to GP: the Pallonetto man runs toward Via Chiaia, chasing the motorcycles. Then, when he realizes they're far away, he turns back and rejoins his other two accomplices. The three of them get into a Sym Symphony and flee toward Monte di Dio, passing through the license plate recognition gate "Spagnoli – Via Monte di Dio." The license plate will lead investigators to a woman living on Via Pallonetto in Santa Lucia, the same building where one of the men appears to live.
But the feud didn't end with the long-distance clash in the square. Around 3:10 a.m., that same night, another volley of gunfire was reported in Vico Caricatoio, directly below the apartment where Johnny Percich had recently moved in. CCTV cameras on Via Nicotera captured a Sym Symphony with a covered license plate, with three individuals aboard. From his black overalls with white inserts, investigators recognized MP, almost eighteen, who had already been seen alongside the other two minors, and noted that one of the occupants was holding a firearm as he was returning from Via Santa Teresella degli Spagnoli.
The inspection in Vico Caricatoio revealed a lodged bullet, damage to a French window and, inside number 5, in the telecom box of Jhonny's apartment building, 22 6,35 caliber cartridges with the same PPU 25 Auto stamping found on the shell casing in Piazza Carolina, as well as drug packaging material.
The ordinance underscores the symbolic value of the street parade: the counter-paranza of the "Piazza Carolina boys" brings armed conflict to the heart of the Spanish Quarter, just meters from the new home of the son of an alleged Camorra killer, transferring the war of the streets right into the historic sanctuary of Neapolitan crime.
Cameras, social media, and family: the investigation into armed teenagers
The prosecution's case rests primarily on three pillars: widespread video surveillance, social media links, and family connections. The juvenile prosecutors and the Flying Squad reconstruct the armed expedition minute by minute: with stopwatch in hand, they estimate the commando's round-trip journey from Vico Cariati to Piazza Carolina and back at eleven minutes, a distance of approximately 900 meters each way, and they overlay the tracks, Google Maps, and timestamps of each active camera.
The images are then compared with photo signals and photos extracted from TikTok and Instagram: Jhonny's hat-scarf already immortalized in a previous arrest for weapons, ML's military green Adidas tracksuit with white zip and red inserts posted on his mother's profile, AF's black Nike sleeveless jacket, the white shoes with black inserts, MP's black tracksuit with white bands
The prosecution emphasizes how these clothing details, repeated in different contexts, become key identifying elements, particularly when the boys try to disguise themselves with additional black clothing that they then abandon while running.
A further layer of evidence comes from wiretaps on the Fiat 500X used by Johnny. In a conversation with his mother on December 18th, the boy recounts that "those people from Piazza Carolina" confessed to him who had sprayed his car under his balcony, naming him...omissis and "omissiis... the one who was having sex with the barge," a former friend of his brother.
On the family front, the order heavily references criminal genealogy: Jhonny is the son of Percich Salvatore, arrested in October 2025 for the murder of innocent amateur footballer Umberto Catanzaro, with a long history in the clans, and already linked to Bizzarro Antonio, connected to the Amato-Pagano clan in the Northern area.
The prosecutor speaks of a "habitual pattern of crime" that is escalating in severity, with very young people handling firearms with ease, moving between multiple logistics bases (between the Spanish Quarter, Pallonetto, and Pianura), and being constantly intercepted in large groups on the steps of the colonnade and on Via Santa Lucia.
Danger of escape and open war in the squares
The arrest warrant for the four minors is based on charges of attempted aggravated murder, possession and carrying of firearms, damage followed by explosion, receiving stolen scooters, with the aggravating circumstance of mafia methods and, on some counts, premeditation.
MC, however, is also charged with attempted murder in response, for the shots fired towards the fleeing commando; GP is charged with co-possession of the weapon and participation in the armed escape with MC and MP.
In terms of precautionary measures, juvenile prosecutors are focusing on two issues: the risk of retaliatory behavior occurring amid an ongoing feud between two opposing groups, and the real risk of escape, fueled by the network of supporters and the mobility demonstrated in just a few days between makeshift homes, trips abroad, and bases outside the neighborhood.
The war for control of the drug dealing hubs in the Piazza Plebiscito area is described as already underway, with an escalation that has transformed Naples's main landmark into the theater of a conflict between baby bosses, in full continuity with the adult Camorra but with increasingly younger and unpredictable players.
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Comments (1)
It's very sad to see young people involved in acts of violence like these. The situation in the Spanish Quarters seems to have worsened, and there are increasing reports of gang clashes. Something must be done to stop this spiral of violence.