Until his arrest in July 2010,[1] he had been on the "most wanted list" of the Italian ministry of the Interior since March 2009, for Camorra association, international drug trafficking and other crimes.

[2] Pagano is one of the leaders of Scissionisti di Secondigliano with his brother-in-law Raffaele Amato.

The Amato-Pagano clan started a war, known as the Scampia feud, with the Di Lauro clan to take over the control of main drug-dealing turf in the Naples area that resulted in the deaths of around 70 people between 2004 and 2005.

[1][3] On July 8, 2010, Pagano and two other men – including his fugitive nephew Carmine Pagano – were arrested in a beach villa in Licola near the town of Pozzuoli, on the northern shoreline of the sprawling southern Italian city of Naples.

They put up no resistance after police surrounded a house where they were hiding and fired warning shots.