The former director of the Reggio Calabria prison, Maria Carmela Longo, was arrested on charges of external involvement in a mafia association. The investigating magistrate ordered house arrest against him at the request of the prosecutor Giovanni Bombardieri and the deputy prosecutors of the Dda Stefano Musolino and Sabrina Fornaro. The investigation that led to the arrest, conducted by the Central Investigative Unit of the DAP, revealed what the prosecutors define as "a systematic violation of the rules of the penitentiary system and the circulars of the Department of Penitentiary Administration". According to the reconstruction of the DDA, Maria Carmela Longo "contributed to the maintenance and strengthening of criminal associations of the 'Ndrangheta type".
According to the investigators, the former director endorsed "the requests of the confined prisoners at the 'Panzera' prison". The favored inmates were those placed in the "high security" circuit, under investigation or accused for 416bis or for crimes aggravated by mafia methods. Among these there was also the lawyer Paolo Romeo, former parliamentary and main defendant in the "Gotha" trial, underway before the Reggio Court. But also affiliated with the mafia families of Reggio and the province such as Cosimo Alvaro, Maurizio Cortese, Michele Crudo, Domenico Bellocco, Giovanni Battista Cacciola and others. In particular, the former director allegedly had a predilection for some "welcome" inmates who had the opportunity to meet family members outside the penitentiary institution and outside the limits provided for in the rules on interviews. Dr. Longo, it is written in the indictment, "identified the inmates to be authorized to carry out intramural work, as well as those to be indicated to the surveillance magistrate for the completion of external work". Maria Carmela Longo also allegedly allowed "the placement of restricted inmates in a High Security circuit linked by kinship or belonging to the same criminal association in the same cells".
