A new operation against fuel smuggling has also involved the Direzione Distrettuale Antimafia (District Anti-Mafia Directorate), which requested and obtained precautionary arrests from the Naples Review Court for three suspects in the Naples area. Two of them are accused of criminal conspiracy aimed at smuggling energy products, aggravated by offences linked to the Camorra activities of the Mazzarella clan, while the third is accused of Mafia-type association. The order became final on 15 July 2026, when the Corte di Cassazione (Court of Cassation) rejected the appeals lodged by the defence teams. Two suspects were taken to prison, while a European arrest warrant was issued for the third, who had moved to Greece. After around a month on the run, he turned himself in at the Napoli-Secondigliano prison.
The investigations, led and coordinated by the Dda and delegated to officers from the Caserta provincial command of the Guardia di Finanza, reconstructed a criminal organisation specialised in trafficking energy products. Investigators describe a structure operating in the Campania region and connected with several EU and national suppliers for product procurement. The fuel was then illegally released for consumption through commercial depots and compliant service stations, following a pattern that has characterised excise fraud in the road fuel distribution sector for years.
During the investigations, 133,796 litres of energy products were seized. However, the overall scale of the fraud reconstructed by investigators was far higher: 10,162,053 litres were allegedly kept outside tax assessment procedures. The evaded taxes amounted to €4,911,414.55 in excise duty and consumption tax and €2,906,660.62 in VAT. According to prosecutors’ reconstruction, this tax evasion was accompanied by the fictitious creation and subsequent transfer of tax credits worth €6,027,956, arising from fraudulent VAT declarations.
