Gratteri: "There's a jammer on trial in a prison. It's the only way to shut down the mafia bosses."

NAPLES. The money was in the wall. €3.2 million in banknotes, buried in an apartment on Via Atellana in Caivano, along with luxury watches. The Carabinieri had to work hard to get them out. At dawn, during the same round of operations, 34 precautionary measures were taken against an armed Camorra organization linked to the Angelino clan, active between Caivano and Casoria: 23 in prison, 11 under house arrest.

Drug trafficking, extortion, mafia methods. A classic raid by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate, carried out by the Castello di Cisterna Investigative Unit and the Caivano and Casoria companies.

At the press conference, however, Nicola Gratteri didn't stop at the loot. He raised the issue that, in his view, undermines even the most successful raids: the mafia bosses who continue to issue orders from prison. "I won't say which institution, for security reasons."

"This phenomenon, and we've been repeating it for over ten years now, can only be countered by installing jammers in prisons," the prosecutor said. "A jammer is currently being tested in one prison.

I'm not saying which one for security reasons.

I hope this is the beginning of installing jammers in all prisons." The message is the same one Gratteri has been repeating for years: having a cell phone in a cell is not a whim.

It's the operations center. Threats are sent via cell phone, bribes are demanded, and drug dealing centers and hierarchies are kept afloat. The prison, if it remains "with a signal," ceases to isolate and becomes an office. The prosecutor declined to name the institution.

He only said that the test is underway and that, if it works, it will have to become the rule, not the exception.

The kidnapping that "pays" for ratings

Then came the second blow, political rather than judicial. Gratteri took a head-on stance on the cost of wiretapping, a debate that Justice Minister Carlo Nordio has repeatedly placed at the heart of the reform.

"Regarding the cost of wiretapping that Minister Nordio mentioned, with today's seizure, amounting to 3,2 million euros, we've paid for a year's worth of wiretapping in Naples alone."

The sentence is calculated. It's not a prosecutor's budget. It's a counterweight: on the one hand, the expenditure on listening, on the other, the cash stolen from the clans and already seized. "We carry out several of these operations over the course of a year," he added.

"Despite the pressure, even from the media, we're moving forward anyway. We're not investigating whether there's a decree or not. We're working with the resources we have."

Two wars, the same enemy

The picture emerging from the press room is twofold. Outside, the clans hiding millions in the walls of Caivano. Inside, the leaders still trying to move men and businesses from the penitentiary.

For Gratteri, the first war is won with investigations. The second, without jammers, remains open. For now, there's only one jammer. Experimental. Unnamed. The prosecutor presents it as the beginning. The rest, he said, will have to cover all prisons. Otherwise, orders will continue to be issued from behind bars, even after the money has already been found in the concrete.