Camorra: "Spighetto" is freed: fireworks in San Giovanni celebrate the release of the alleged killer.

Naples – A swift release weighs heavily on the investigation by the Naples District Anti-Mafia Directorate. Less than three weeks after his sensational airport arrest, Raffaele Busiello, aka "Spighetto," has been released.

The Court of Review upheld the defense's appeal, deeming the evidence gathered against him by the Flying Squad insufficient. Busiello was considered one of the perpetrators of the fatal attack on Salvatore De Marco, a crime that shocked the San Giovanni a Teduccio neighborhood with its brutality and ruthlessness.

The bloody ambush on the feast day

The bloody trail begins on March 2, 2026. Salvatore De Marco, 33, has a weighty surname in eastern Naples: he is the son of Susetta Rinaldi and the nephew of boss Ciro Rinaldi, known as "mauè." But Salvatore wants nothing more to do with the clan's dynamics. After serving a sentence for common, non-associative crimes, he has only one goal: to give his wife and daughters a clean future, far from Naples.

That future shatters at 3:00 PM on March 2nd, in San Giovanni a Teduccio. Salvatore is in the car with his wife. It's a special date, his daughter's fourteenth birthday, but the Camorra hitmen offer no respite or emotional relief. De Marco is flanked and gunned down by the killers. A pure cross-party vendetta, yet another demonstration of how organized crime uses human lives almost entirely unrelated to the clans as easy targets to send messages of death to their adversaries.

The report of the informants: "He is a member of the clan."

The Flying Squad and the Anti-Mafia Department's investigations immediately focused on the feud between the Rinaldis and the fierce D'Amico group of the reconstituted Via Nuova Villa faction. This is where Raffaele Busiello comes into play. Over the months, several informants have spoken at length about him. The informants unanimously identified him as a key figure, a key figure in the D'Amico clan, poised to lead the group's armed wing in the hot spots of San Giovanni and Ponticelli. The informants' statements paint an alarming profile: a dense accusatory framework that seemed to pin the net around "Spighetto" as one of those responsible for De Marco's death.

The movie-like arrest on the return from Ibiza

The investigators' pressure culminates shortly before summer with a spectacular raid. Located while on vacation in Ibiza, Busiello is monitored every step of the way during his return flight. The Flying Squad officers decide not to take any risks and intervene directly on the runway: they board the plane as soon as it touches down on Italian soil and arrest Busiello before the incredulous eyes of the passengers. It appears to be the end of an escape and a turning point in the investigation into the De Marco murder.

The twist of the Riesame and the celebration in the neighborhood

The arrest, however, did not stand up to scrutiny by the preliminary hearing. The judges deemed the evidence presented by the prosecution insufficiently solid, ordering the thirty-four-year-old's immediate release.

News of his return to San Giovanni a Teduccio spread within minutes, sparking a reaction that raises disturbing questions about the state's control of the territory. As documented and reported by journalist Luciana Esposito—a reporter under police protection who has been on the front lines of reporting on the criminal dynamics of eastern Naples for years—"Spighetto's" return home was greeted with fireworks both in San Giovanni and in the nearby Ponticelli neighborhood.

The release undoubtedly represents a significant setback for the Prosecutor's Office. Now the ball is in the court's court of review's decision: only then will investigators understand which investigative gaps need to be filled to prevent Salvatore De Marco's murder from remaining a crime without a culprit.