Camorra

The Camorra , “protection”, is a gangster phenomenon resulting from the city. It is a type of Mafia born with Naples in Italy around the beginning of the 19th century. Starting from Naples, it was diffused in all the Campanie.

Its name would come is will chamarra which means jacket of gangster, that is to say of will camorra which means brawl. It counts 7.500 initiates, the camorrists, gathered in 120 to 130 families. Female members start to play there an increasingly important part because of the many arrests and assassinations. It is very integrated in the population, especially in the poorest mediums.

Activities

Camorra is present in all the sectors of the Neapolitan regional economy. Its clans manage various traffics, the prostitution and the extortion of moneies.

They are also present in the public offerings of building sites, the adjudications and the linked activities with the public expenditure. The chief of civil protection thus recognized that “as regards management of waste, only gaining reality is that of Camorra”.

These activities are very numerous:

  • extortion: certain people estimate that Camorra receives money on behalf of all industries and companies of Naples and its surroundings in the form of tax called the “pizzo”. Moreover, it invested in legal activities and completely controls the local store of the flowers, the meat and the garbage collection.

  • smuggling: smuggling of stolen objects, or counterfeit. The traffic of cigarettes, almost disappeared since nearly 20 years, reappeared after the rises in the prices of the tobacco in Europe.
  • drug trafficking coming from the the Maghreb (Cannabis), of Turkey (Heroin, Opium) and of the countries of South America (Cocaine). The drug trafficking would bring back 500.000 dollars per day to Camorra.
  • fraud: all the Maffias Italian, Camorra in particular, divert the European subsidies.
  • clandestine plays: old activity.
  • production of concrete in Campania: after the earthquake of 1980, Camorra diverted million (coming from the EU primarily) thanks to the contracts of rebuilding.

Internationalization

Very decentralized, Camorra remained a long time with the variation of the large criminal international markets. In its book Gomorra , Roberto Saviano evoked the internationalization of Camorra in Spain, France and Germany.

Spain

In an interview with the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais, Roberto Saviano explains why Nuvoletta, Michele Zaza and other members of Camorra massively recycles their illicit profits in Andalusian tourism industry, acquiring hotels, restaurants and night clubs.

Camorra would have also taken the control of the imports in Europe of Colombian Cocaïne by dies installed with Madrid and Barcelona. According to him, Spain “would be invaded by the money of Camorra”, but “the local political community would not have become aware yet of it”.

France

Michele Zaza had important activities in the Trafic of cigarettes around the Port of Marseilles. During its arrest of the March 15th 1990, suspicions of traffic of cocaine also weigh on him.

Some notable members

Some famous members: Raffaele Cutolo, Lorenzo and Angelo Nuvoletta, Pasquale and Salvatore Lo Russo, Pasquale Galasso, Lorenzo Dominici, Edoardo Contini, Dye with carmine Alfieri, Michele Zaza, Paolo di Lauro, Francesco Schiavone (“Sandokan”), Michele Zagaria and Antonio Iovine.

Threats

Camorra has death threat several judges, police officers or journalists such as Roberto Saviano, author of the Gomorra book.

Wars

In the Years 1970, Raffaele Cutolo founded the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO). Its opponents founded Nuova Famiglia and the war between the two organizations made 264 dead for the only year 1982.

Ten years afterwards, Carmine Alfieri tried to organize Camorra on the level of the Campanie. This new all-out war made 708 dead 1989 with 1991, including more than 500 in Naples even.

End 2004 and beginning 2005, an attempt at secession inside the clan of Paolo Di Lauro started, in the districts Scampia and Secondigliano, a fatal conflict which made 134 dead.

At the end of October 2006, a wave of crimes made eighteen dead. These crimes would result from a modification of balances in the Neapolitan surface, with the constitution of two trusts: the Misso-Mazzarella-Sarno clans against the alliance of Secondigliano (Di Lauro, Licciardi).

References

  • Italy: a writer antimafia under protection , Release, November 3rd, 2006

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