Anna Carrino the first guest of Insider, broadcast on Saturday 12 February at 9.45 pm on Rai 3
The Casalesi clan will never die. Because a root: you cut it and the plant comes out, you cut it and it comes out again.
These are words of Anna CarrinoCamorra who became a collaborator of justice, who for almost thirty years was the companion of one of the leaders of the Casalesi clan, Francesco Bidognetti, also known as Cicciotto ‘e Mezzanotte.
Interviewing her has meaning for me find me face to face with the boss’s partner who turned my life upside down. In May 2021, Francesco Bidognetti and his lawyer Michele Santonastaso were sentenced for having threatened me and the journalist Rosaria Capacchione in a courtroom. It was 2008, the Spartacus trial was underway, the maxi trial against the Casalesi. The clan stoodtherefore, in a moment of extreme difficulty, so much so that he felt the need to attack the narrative that had put the spotlight on him nationally and internationally. A move that, if on the one hand showed the weakness of the Casalesion the other hand, it brought out their feeling of safety and power to the point of launching intimidation into a court of justice, as if to say: if you condemn us, there will be consequences for everyone.
Ho I have dedicated most of my life to reporting the crimes committed in my land by the Casalesi clan, the Camorra group that for decades commanded, poisoned and destroyed the Agro Aversano area. Its affiliates are responsible for the worst building speculations in the area, but also for the irreversible pollution of the soil carried out through the spill of toxic waste, which has caused the disease and death of a number of people who perhaps do not yet know, because the We will continue to pay the consequences of this disaster for years to come.
The bosses Francesco Bidognetti, Francesco Schiavone, Michele Zagaria and Antonio Iovine – proteges of the progenitor Antonio Bardellino – together with their army of affiliates have built a criminal holding that found sides in colluding entrepreneurship and corrupt politics, and in the meantime, behind their dress as managers, they continued to commit murders and fight feuds. Anna Carrino knew them all. All the clan leaders, their bodyguards, the assassins, and while she was at the side of Francesco Bidognetti was direct witness to the crimes that these men did. But she wasn’t just a spectator.
Among his tasks, there was the management of the Bidognetti family’s cash desk: in his hands came the proceeds of some of the companies owned by the clan, such as Cobit Sud, a consortium that operated in the maintenance and asphalt sector (managed through a nominee from Francesco Bidognetti and Francesco Schiavone Sandokan) and Concordia, a funeral home also owned by the clan. And then there was the big waste deal, which ran on two parallel tracks: the control of the urban waste cycle in the years of the emergency in Campania and the illegal dumping of toxic waste in the quarries and agricultural land of the region on behalf of numerous companies in the North. The latter was by far the most profitable business for the organization, and Anna Carrino has very vivid memories of that period: One evening they brought black sacks full of money, I’ll never forget it. Full. Full, those sacks were. And they said they had to go and make a hole in Giugliano, because some trucks had to arrive that had to dump this waste. Lei carrino claims he never knew it was toxic waste, so much so that when he thinks of his former partner Bidognetti and his accomplices, he wonders: They destroyed all the land in the whole Casalese, Caserta and Neapolitan area. How do they watch their children? I can’t understand that, the grandchildren. He has four grandchildren, already. How does he live?
But Anna Carrino is not limited to the role of family cashier or the boss’s woman: at a certain point she found herself a fundamental element for the whole clan. In fact, when in 1993 her partner and father of her three children is arrested and ends up in 41bis, that is the harsh prison regime, she, being the only one to have access to the interviews, becomes the messenger between the inmate chief and the ‘organization. She thus begins to secretly bring out of the prison the embassies for the affiliates that Bidognetti communicates to her through encrypted signals that are able to evade even the constant control of the prison police. For example, to indicate Francesco Schiavone, he passes a hand over his beard, a distinctive trait of the Casalese boss; or, to speak of Alessandro Cirillo known as’ or Sergeant, he marks her grades on her shoulder. in these years that Anna Carrino becomes a full member of the clan, up to the point of committing a crime for which he received a sentence of 16 years and 8 months as the instigator of the murder. The young Antonio Petito, a 20-year-old boy who had had a quarrel over a banal question of viability with Gianluca Bidognetti, the then fifteen-year-old son of Carrino and Cicciotto ‘e Mezzanotte, lost his life. You don’t know who I am, the boss’s son had said arrogantly, and Petito had dared to answer him: What does it matter to me ?, thus signing his death warrant.
It was only when she learned that her partner had been carrying on a relationship with another woman, Angela Barra, with whom he had also had three daughters for twenty years, that Anna Carrino began to evaluate the hypothesis of repentance. This betrayal and the difficult balance within her family led her to take the path of collaboration with justice. Once the decision is made, Carrino leaves Casale and her three children. After her escape, her family made a fire with her personal belongings, but this was not enough to wash away the shame of cooperation, the worst infamy for a mafia family. The prosecutor Antonello Ardituro guided her in the path of collaboration, who by collecting the important testimonies of him was able to incriminate dozens of members of the organization.
Today Anna Carrino lives under a false name in a protected location, where he is serving a sentence in home detention for mafia association and murder. He claims he does not hold a grudge towards his ex-partner Francesco Bidognetti, despite the fact that he is aware that he has ended up on his blacklist.
When I met her, one of the things I most wanted to ask her why. Why did the Casalesi threaten me and condemn me to a life under protection? Because he said so many bad things about them – he replied – I felt that you were doing all this to get police, carabinieri, many police forces to come to Casal di Principe. And they would not have been quieter in their territory. Because the Casalesi are in hiding in Casale. Not that they go to Brazil or America. They do it there. And when a person comes and begins to talk about the Casalesi clan, and begins to talk about the town of Casale, as if they were going to ruin something that they have created for so many years anyway. Sometimes it happened that some affiliate came to the house and said: ‘That piece of shit came to Casal di Principe and he just doesn’t want to leave us alone’.
Well, they weren’t wrong about one thing: I really don’t want to leave them alone.
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February 12, 2022 (change February 12, 2022 | 20:06)
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