Castellammare, emergency contracts: from random checks to the councilor's security detail. Here's how the "Gargiulo Team" worked.

There's a bitter, almost mocking paradox playing out within the halls of power in Castellammare di Stabia. In a city that has endured the devastating impact of an administration dissolved due to Camorra infiltration and is struggling to rebuild its civic credibility, one would expect the control structures to be impregnable fortresses. One would expect every public euro spent, every contract awarded, and every door to the technical offices to be protected by the utmost rigor of transparency.

Yet, one only needs to browse the minutes of the investigation conducted into the management of Public Works—specifically, Sector IV, led by engineer Catello Gargiulo—to discover a microcosm operating according to completely reversed rules. A world where verification of the moral and fiscal qualifications of those who win contracts is played out like a roulette wheel, and where the boundaries between politics, bureaucracy, and private interests blur in a constant exchange of handshakes, polite greetings, and informal encounters that seem to ignore any lessons learned from the past.

The Security Lottery and Ignored Taxes

At the center of the scene is a name that recurs with impressive regularity whenever the Municipality must organize a public event or certify the usability of a space: that of surveyor and engineer Luigi Cascone. Whether it's the security plan for Maestro Ramin Bahrami's Christmas concert, the usability certificates for initiatives at Villa Gabola, or, most recently, a generous four-year framework agreement worth €20 to secure the future management of events, the choice of offices consistently falls to him. A de facto monopoly, justified on paper with the usual litany of "lack of internal staff" and the rush of emergency procedures.

But it's digging beneath the surface of the documents that the investigation hits its most glaring obstacle. When investigators cross-reference the name of the technician who provided the service with the tax authorities' databases, a reality emerges that's incompatible with the management of public funds: at the time of the contract for the Christmas concert, Cascone was saddled with a debt of €69.110 in unpaid VAT dating back to 2020.

Under Italian law, anyone with serious and definitive tax debts is barred from bidding: they are automatically excluded from any contract. Only weeks after the event, at the end of January 2025, will the professional receive the installment payment for that amount.

How, then, was it possible to entrust the city's security to someone in such a position of fiscal irregularity, without anyone at City Hall lifting a finger or putting pen to paper to assess the appropriateness?

«We carry out random checks and draws»

"We don't check everyone for amounts under €40.000, but only randomly through a random draw. The professional's self-declaration remains. Dr. Cascone's decision was not drawn." The justification of the Technical Director, Engineer Catello Gargiulo, before the Commission of Inquiry

The response given by director Catello Gargiulo to the commissioners of inquiry is one that leaves one dismayed: "The decision was not drawn." In Sector IV of the Municipality of Castellammare di Stabia, legality is governed by a bureaucratic lottery. For direct contracts below the threshold, the office relies on a 10% draw. Those who end up in the bin are monitored; the remaining 90% of contracts are subject to blind trust, covered only by the self-certifications of those who win the contract. In a sector that generates tens of millions of euros, leaving control to chance means, in effect, abdicating the duty of oversight.

"Open Doors": When the Councilor Gets His Stocks

But the lottery of controls is merely the effect of a much deeper and more disturbing organizational climate, revealed without hesitation by the technical director himself during a hearing that feels like a heartfelt confession. While the municipal headquarters monitors access and the Urban Planning Department has equipped itself with digital software to track who enters and exits, the Public Works branch is a sort of seaport. There is no security, no registers, no filters.

"City councilors, professionals, and business representatives regularly come to my office," Gargiulo admitted, normalizing a promiscuity that in a municipality formerly dissolved for mafia reasons sounds like a red-hot alarm bell. And in the back-room traffic, where politicians directly address the heads of individual procedures (the RUPs) when the manager is away from his desk, one figure stands out: Ciro Cascone.

Elected in the current majority with over five hundred votes on the civic list "La nostra Castellammare," Ciro Cascone is described as a frequent visitor to the technical offices, a councilor "very attentive to the local area" who moves through the rooms of Sector IV with absolute mastery. But his interpersonal ease exceeds the threshold when Gargiulo records a detail that illustrates the short circuit between power and business: Ciro Cascone showed up at the technical offices, physically accompanying private professionals who were in charge of thorny construction practices and ongoing disputes with the Municipality. The reason for this political escort of a private individual to the administrative offices? "Just to say hello," the manager downplayed. A greeting too much for someone who should guarantee the absolute impartiality of the administrative machine.

The relational triangle: procurement, politics, and old acquaintances

The security contractor (Luigi Cascone)Beneficiary of direct contracts and a four-year framework agreement worth €20.000 for event safety, chosen on a trust basis by the authorities despite a VAT debt of €69.110 for 2020 that was not paid in installments at the time of the initial awards.

The majority councilor (Ciro Cascone)A regular visitor to unsupervised technical offices, he was accustomed to dealing directly with officials and introducing private professionals with pending cases. He was linked to Luigi Cascone by a friendship monitored by law enforcement from 2005 to 2025.

The Shadow of Scanzano (Luigi Staiano): Direct nephew of the late historic boss and founder of the D'Alessandro clan ("Gigginiello"), arrested in November 2025 for mafia extortion. Along with him, councilor Ciro Cascone was also checked in the area in September 2014.

Piazza Principe Umberto and its common thread with Scanzano

It's when the paths of the contractor surveyor Luigi Cascone and the city councilor Ciro Cascone intersect that the entire puzzle becomes crystal clear. When the commissioners point out to Gargiulo that the professional in charge of security is a close friend of the majority councilor—a fact that alone should have prompted the banning of the lottery and the activation of stricter controls—the manager offers no resistance. He knows it; it's a known fact.

Law enforcement reports reveal that this isn't just a simple acquaintance born in the shadow of the bell tower, but a strong brotherhood that has lasted at least twenty years. Police records document joint checks of the two "Cascone" men in the same car as far back as 2005 in Piano di Sorrento; they were found together in Torre Annunziata in 2023; and they were photographed side by side again in April 2025 in Piazza Principe Umberto, in the heart of Castellammare di Stabia. An unbroken bond that continues peacefully even as one sits on the City Council benches and the other receives contract awards from the Public Works Department.

 Contact with the D'Alessandro dynasty

What makes this network of acquaintances a true case study for the democratic stability of the institution isn't just the exchange of favors or influence between the politician and the technician. A precedent emerges from the folds of territorial controls that casts a heavy shadow: on September 1, 2014, councilor Ciro Cascone was identified by police in the company of Luigi Staiano. Not just any citizen, but the son of Maria D'Alessandro and nephew of the patriarch of the Scanzano clan, Luigi D'Alessandro, alias "Gigginiello." A man of proven criminal caliber, arrested in November 2025 for extortion, aggravated by mafia methods, against the bar at the Romeo Menti stadium on behalf of the ruling clan.

This is why the "Cascone issue" cannot be reduced to a trivial bureaucratic anomaly, nor dismissed under the pretext of the incorrect draw. This story is a snapshot of a management approach—labeled in the documents as the "Gargiulo Team"—that transformed emergency procedures into routine practice and allowed the technical offices to become accessible and compliant hubs.

In a city attempting to permanently end the era of infiltration and influence, turning a blind eye to twenty-year friendships, tolerating councilors who escort private individuals through the corridors of the technical department, and entrusting legality to a random lottery draw means running the greatest risk: reopening the door to precisely what was intended to be banished.