Giugliano – It seemed like a normal expansion of a tourist village, but for the Pozzuoli Forestry Carabinieri and the municipal technicians it was instead an illegal construction site on an industrial scale.
The operation, conducted on Via Orsa Maggiore, led to the seizure of a 65-square-meter area—owned by the Campania Region and managed by an events company—and the filing of charges against five individuals, held responsible, to varying degrees, for urban planning and environmental crimes.
A ghost “village” in the crosshairs
When the military entered the area, they found a construction site in full swing with nine workers at work. The illegal project was ambitious and well-defined: the construction of four paddle tennis courts, two five-a-side football pitches, and one eight-a-side football pitch.
To accommodate the sports facilities, massive reinforced concrete slabs covering approximately 1.500 square meters had already been poured, and 8 square meters of excavation had been completed. Furthermore, the site inspections also revealed the construction of three new residential buildings and extraordinary maintenance work on twenty existing residences.
Building abuse and open-air waste
Cross-checking with historical orthophotos left the perpetrators helpless. None of the construction projects were found to have existed before September 2024, confirming the complete absence of building permits and landscape authorizations.
The illegal situation was exacerbated by the discovery of an uncontrolled dump of hazardous waste, resulting from demolition and construction activities, abandoned within the area. The entire area, leased public land, was placed under seizure.
It seems strange to me that there was no authorization. The work seemed normal, but then the police found concrete slabs and illegal camps. The area was leased to the Region, but there was waste everywhere, huge excavations, and new buildings. We hope the situation is clarified and the land is restored.