A Far West-style firefight that fits into a scenario of organized crime and bathes in blood one of the main streets of Acerra, a municipality in the province of Naples, where just a few days ago the Head of State Sergio Mattarella stopped off for the 77th anniversary of the Liberation.
During the night, 21-year-old Vincenzo Tortora and 22-year-old Pasquale Di Balsamo were shot dead: they died a short distance from each other. Di Balsamo was declared deceased upon arrival at the Villa dei Fiori clinic, fatal was a bullet that punctured his side. Tortora, on the other hand, died in the Cardarelli hospital in Naples: after arriving at the ‘villa dei Fiori’, it was decided to transfer him to the Neapolitan hospital due to the serious injuries he sustained. A bullet hit his head. There was no escape for the 21-year-old. And so in the notebook of the carabinieri of the investigative unit of Castello di Cisterna and of the district anti-mafia directorate of Naples, yet another story has been pinned attributable to organized crime that holds the serenity and development of various areas of the Neapolitan hostage. A story to be written. Those who investigate are not going too far, but there is a hypothesis that at the moment takes the upper hand over the others: Tortora and Di Balsamo would not have been victims of the same killer, but would have faced each other at gunpoint and both fell on the field’, hit by several bullets. The evidence of the firefight would be the numerous pistol shots fired and the same number of shell casings found at the scene of the crime, via Leonardo da Vinci. Cases of different calibres, which suggests that the weapons used were different. But how many and which weapons? This is one of the question marks that awaits an answer: the carabinieri did not find any guns at the scene. The figure opens the way for another consideration: were the two rivals perhaps in the company of other people who proceeded to clean up the crime scene by making the weapons disappear? An aid in the reconstruction of the dynamics could come from the video surveillance cameras installed in the area.
Then the reasons for the shooting: the hypotheses are twofold but both lead back to the conflict between the Tortora and Avventurato clans who manage the underworld in the area. The 21-year-old Vincenzo Tortora was linked to the Tortora group, while Di Balsamo was close to the Avventurato group. What needs to be established is whether the firefight is the result of a qualitative leap in hostilities between the two groups with the risk of an explosion of a feud, or whether the two victims have decided to settle on their own, without referring at the top of their respective associations, disagreements over the management of some illicit activities, such as drug dealing for example.
However, the hypothesis of a double homicide signed by the same hand also remains open. Scenario that is not excluded a priori, even if at the moment it does not seem the privileged track.
