Camorra, Ullero clan hit: they controlled Cardito with bombs, extortion, and threats

Naples – A barrage of years of imprisonment—for a total of over 150 years—has fallen this afternoon on the Cardito and Carditello criminal syndicate. The sentence, handed down by preliminary hearing judge Alessandra Zingales of the Court of Naples following the summary trial chosen by nearly all the defendants, dismantles the organizational structure and the dense network of mafia cover-ups that have suffocated the local economy for years.

The heaviest sentences were handed down to key figures in the clan's operational transition: 18 years in prison for Giuseppe De Simone, the strongman and new strategist of the drug dealing center, and 16 years and 6 months for Rocco Chianese, the boss's son-in-law and the operational arm of the historic faction. An exemplary decision.

While almost all members faced the alternative trial barrier, receiving partial reductions but still very severe sentences, the undisputed supreme leader of the dome, Francesco Ullero, aka "cul' 'e stoppa," decided to face the ordinary trial. Released in June 2020 after nearly thirty years in prison for his past involvement in Raffaele Cutolo's Nuova Camorra Organizzata and Pasquale Scotti's group, Ullero immediately took over the reins of the territory.

For him, the courtroom trial will be the arena in which he will attempt a last-ditch defense against the District Anti-Mafia Directorate's reconstructions, largely supported by the statements of his former right-hand man, now a collaborator with justice, Carmine Polito.

Rebuilding Power: From the Ashes of the NCO to Total Control

The investigation, coordinated by the Naples DDA and conducted with extraordinary thoroughness by the Carabinieri of the Casoria Company, covers a critical time span from August 2021 to the end of 2022, with extortion ramifications confirmed until June 2024.

As crystallized in the indictment signed by the anti-mafia magistrates, the rise of the Ulleros is not a sudden phenomenon, but has its roots in the early 90s, when the group led by Francesco Ullero and that of Francesco Pezzella (aka “pane ran”) had divided criminal hegemony between Frattamaggiore, Frattaminore, Cardito and Crispano, thanks to an unbreakable strategic alliance with the Ciccarelli clan of Caivano.

After his release from prison in 2020, Francesco Ullero reestablished the clan's operational and logistical base within his home at Via Michelangelo Buonarroti 14 in Cardito. It was within those walls that investigators' bugs—particularly thanks to a Trojan horse planted on the boss's cell phone—recorded the clan's sighs, extortion accounting, and decision-making summits for months. Outside the front door, a sophisticated video surveillance system installed by the Carabinieri captured in real time the comings and goings of harassed businessmen, resigned shopkeepers, and members summoned for detention.

The grip of "ecobonuses" and the silent terror on the territory

The financial heart of the gang was fueled by a dual engine: widespread extortion and systematic drug trafficking. In the extortion sector, the Ullero clan had developed a veritable "tariff" tailored to the financial capacity of the victims. Particular attention was paid to construction sites and renovations, facilitated by the "Superbonus 110%" and funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).

Wiretaps reveal the resignation of local merchants, almost all of whom are bent on silence and reluctant to report the crime. The only one who found the courage to turn to law enforcement was the owner of a betting shop in Cardito, the victim of an extortion attempt in August 2021 by Carmine Polito.

For the rest, silence reigned among the victims: entrepreneurs summoned by "Cardito's friends" to appear before the boss to agree on "gifts" worth thousands of euros or forced to suffer subtle but devastating retaliation.
"Do you want to work and be safe? Then bring us this money and you'll be in good health and we won't have a problem."
(The mafia warning intercepted within the walls of Ullero's house).

Among the most emblematic cases that emerged in the indictment was the extortion of a pizzeria where the owner, overwhelmed by financial difficulties, was even forced to make his premises available to celebrate family events for his members without any compensation, or to go in person to deliver envelopes of cash to the boss's house for "quick gifts".

Or the extortion of a construction company, forced to pay 10.000 euros in cash, a sum then meticulously divided into 500 and 1000 euro installments between the boss's wife Antonietta Capasso, his daughter Natascia, and affiliates Giuseppe De Simone and Rocco Chianese.

Against this backdrop of extremely serious charges, lawyer Giuseppe Gallo obtained a substantial reduction in the sentence for his client, Vincenzo Avverso, from a requested 11-year sentence to 8 years and 10 months. He was accused of being an integral part of the clan's extortion network, specifically for the attempted extortion of a company (contracted for over €200 in Cardito) and a meat processing company, where the victims had been peremptorily urged to "get along with their comrades in Cardito."

The prosecution, considering Avverso's contribution to be solid and fully integrated into the mafia mechanism described by former right-hand man Polito (who had confirmed Avverso's affiliation, indicating him as the manager of a car rental company introduced to the group by Rocco Chianese), had requested a 14-year prison sentence.

Attorney Gallo, through a rigorous reconstruction of the facts and highlighting the true temporal scope of his client's conduct—described as having been involved only for a short time and with a marginal role—managed to undermine the original sanctioning framework.

Preliminary Investigating Judge Zingales accepted the defense's arguments, sentencing Avverso to 8 years and 10 months of continuous imprisonment, drastically reducing the District Attorney's claims.

The ruthless punitive expedition against two women and the shadow of the "system"

The episode that perhaps best describes the ferocity and topicality of the Ullero clan is the one involving a woman and her mother. A complex and dramatic story that unfolded in several stages between 2022 and June 2024. The two women occupied an apartment in Cardito with a regular lease granted by Gaetano Cimmino (nicknamed "Tortellino," who was sentenced to 5 years and 4 months).

Cimmino, wanting to vacate the property before the contract expired so that it could be given—according to the charges—to the son-in-law of the boss Rocco Chianese and his wife Concetta Ullero, unleashed a barrage of threats and extortion against the women.
First came the demands for sums of money to be given to Ullero “as a gift,” then the harassment and finally the physical violence.

On the evening of July 13, 2023, after Cimmino had issued a 24-hour ultimatum ("if you don't leave, you'll pay dearly"), a veritable family punitive expedition led by Francesco Ullero, his wife Antonietta Capasso, his daughter Concetta, and his son-in-law Rocco Chianese showed up at the victims' home, ready to block the road and shout death threats: "You don't understand that you have to leave here, maybe you don't know that I'm in charge here... you're a dead man walking." Shortly before, the victims' car had been set on fire. The two women, exasperated and terrified, abandoned their home in June 2024, later experiencing the fire in their bar/bistro and the discovery of a pigeon killed by a gunshot on their balcony.

Drugs, weapons and dynamite: the internal fibrillations of the clan

Alongside extortion, drug dealing was the organization's true core business. Initially run by Carmine Polito and Rocco Chianese, with operations based at the "Le Tre Sorelle" bar, hashish and marijuana trafficking subsequently passed into the hands of Giuseppe De Simone following Polito's arrest in January 2022 and Chianese's disagreements with his father-in-law, the boss.

Intercepted conversations show how the clan militarily controlled the territory, imposing weekly supplies and bribes of hundreds of euros on the drug dealing centers in the IACP district (the "buildings" on Viale Kennedy), and managing large sums of money (over 25.000 euros of common cash at a time) which were reinvested in the purchase of new batches of drugs and in paying the "weekly" maintenance payments to the inmates.

The availability of weapons was also impressive: 9mm pistols kept even inside homes where minors lived, homemade explosive devices weighing over 2 kg (such as the two seized from Carmine Polito, whose explosion could have destroyed buildings), and attempts to purchase ammunition directly from unidentified corrupt Carabinieri.

The defense team includes lawyers Teresa Frippa, Annibale Bove, Maria Di Cesare, Piero Vitale, Luca Camerlengo, Antonio Principe, Nicola Basile, Antonella Senatore, Giuseppe Gallo, Rocco Maria Spina, Dario Carmine Procentese, Arnaldo Lepore, Andrea Lampitelli, Anna Arcella, Nello Sgambato, Paolo Sperlongano, and Maria Giovanna Ponticello.

The picture of convictions

DE SIMONE Giuseppe: 18 years in prison (New leader of drug dealing squares)
CHIANESE Rocco: 16 years and 6 months in prison (Boss's son-in-law, historical faction)
APPLES Enzo: 15 years in prison
spring onions Giovanni: 14 years, 7 months and 20 days (continuously)
BAR Nicola: 10 years, 10 months and 20 days
RONGA Antimo: 10 years in prison
CAPASSO Antonietta: 9 years and 8 months in prison (Wife of mafia boss Francesco Ullero)
POLITO Carmine: 9 years in prison (collaborator of justice)
AGAINST Vincenzo: 8 years and 10 months of imprisonment (continuing)
ULLERO Carlo: 8 years and 8 months in prison
CAPASSO Dario: 8 years and 6 months in prison
IAVARONE Domenico: 8 years and 6 months in prison
CIMMINO Gaetano: 5 years and 4 months in prison (Owner of the Sibilio apartment)
ULLERO Concetta: 5 years and 20 days in prison (Daughter of Mafia Boss Francesco Ullero)
TORNATELLI Luigi: Sentenced (Sentence continually recalculated or absorbed)
ULLERO Francesco: At a trial (He refused the abbreviated procedure, opting for the ordinary procedure)

(in the photo from top left: boss Francesco Ullero, Giuseppe De Simone, Enzo Mele, and Antonietta Capasso; bottom left: Nicola Barra, Domenico Iavarone, Vincenzo Avverso, and Carmine Polito)