The Camorra is an Italian Mafia-type criminal organization and criminal society originating in the region of Campania. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating to the 18th century. The Camorra's organizational structure is divided into individual groups called "clans". Every capo or "boss" is the head of a clan, in which there may be tens or hundreds of affiliates, depending on the clan's power and structure. The Camorra's main businesses are drug trafficking, racketeering, counterfeiting, and money laundering. It is also not unusual for Camorra clans to infiltrate the politics of their respective areas.
Antonio Gava was an Italian politician and member of Christian Democracy (DC). Son of the 13-time minister Silvio Gava, Antonio was one of the Christian Democratic Party's leading power-brokers in Campania over a 25-year period, beginning in 1968 and ending in 1993, when he was charged with membership of a criminal organisation. Together with Arnaldo Forlani and Vincenzo Scotti, he was the leader of DC's current known as "Alleanza Popolare".
Criminal organizations have been prevalent in Italy, especially in the southern part of the country, for centuries and have affected the social and economic life of many Italian regions. There are major native mafia-like organizations that are heavily active in Italy. The most powerful of these organizations are the Camorra from Campania, the 'Ndrangheta from Calabria and the Cosa Nostra from Sicily.
The Scampia feud or First Scampia feud was a feud between the Camorra gangs in the Neapolitan quartiere of Scampia which broke out in 2004 and 2005. The fight was between the Di Lauro clan, from Secondigliano, and the so-called "secessionists", a breakaway faction in the northern suburbs of Naples that tried to assert its control over drugs and prostitution rackets in the area.
Roberto Saviano is an Italian writer, essayist, journalist, and screenwriter. In his writings, including articles and his book Gomorrah, he uses literature and investigative reporting to tell of the economic reality of the territory and business of organized crime in Italy, in particular the Camorra crime syndicate, and of organized crime more generally.
Vittorio Umberto Antonio Maria Sgarbi is an Italian art critic, art historian, writer, politician, cultural commentator, and television personality. He is president of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto. Appointed curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale, Sgarbi is also a columnist for il Giornale and works as an art critic for Panorama and IO Donna. A popular ecletic and mediatic phenomenon, Sgarbi is well known for his glib, verbal aggressiveness, and insults, which often led to libels.
Raffaele Cutolo was an Italian crime boss and leader of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO), an organisation he built to renew the Camorra. Cutolo had a variety of nicknames including 'o Vangelo, 'o Princepe, 'o Professore and 'o Monaco. Apart from 18 months on the run, Cutolo lived entirely in maximum-security prisons or psychiatric prisons after 1963. At the time of his death he was serving multiple life sentences for murder.
Pasquale Galasso is a former boss of the Galasso clan, a clan of the Camorra, the Neapolitan crime organization. Since August 1992, he has been a pentito, collaborating with the Italian justice. He revealed many intricate secrets about the Camorra. This led to revelations from other pentiti allowing an insight into the Camorra from the insider's point of view.
Francesco Bidognetti is a powerful Italian Camorrista. He is the chief lieutenant of Francesco Schiavone, boss of the Casalesi clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta, and head of the Bidognetti clan, one of the five clans which make up the Casalesi. He is known as "'Cicciott' 'e Mezzanotte'".
The Scissionisti di Secondigliano or Amato-Pagano clan is a Camorra clan from the Secondigliano district of Naples, headed by Raffaele Amato and Cesare Pagano. They are also known as "Spagnoli" (Spaniards) because of their strong presence in Spain, particularly in Costa del Sol and Barcelona.
The Russo clan is a Neapolitan Camorra clan operating in the town of Nola and its surrounding territories. Police say the Russo clan had total control over illegal activity in about 40 towns in the Naples region.
The Bellocco 'ndrina is a clan of the 'Ndrangheta, a criminal and mafia-type organisation in Calabria, Italy. The 'ndrina is based in Rosarno, on the Tyrrhenian coast, and belongs to the locale of that town, particularly very active in drugs trafficking, arms trafficking, extortion and control of commercial and entrepreneurial activities.
Aldo Semerari was an Italian criminologist, anthropologist and psychiatrist. He was also a noted neo-fascist, who was suspected of complicity in the terror attack that killed 85 people at Bologna railway station in 1980.
Enrico Alfano, also known as "Erricone", was considered to be one of the chiefs of the Camorra, a Mafia-type organisation in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy, at the turn of the 20th century. He was described as "a kind of president of the confederation." According to some sources, Alfano was linked to the murder of New York City police lieutenant Joseph Petrosino in Palermo in 1909, however, the murder had since been attributed to the Sicilian Mafia.
Antonio Nicaso is an Italian author, university professor, researcher, speaker and consultant to governments and law-enforcement agencies originally from Caulonia, Calabria, Italy, now based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is an expert on the Calabrian mafia. Nicaso lives and works in North America. He teaches courses on "Social History of Organized Crime in Canada" and "Mafia Culture and the Power of Symbols, Rituals and Myth" at Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario. He also teaches at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo, Ontario and the Italian School of Middlebury College in Oakland, California in the United States and is the co-director of the Research in Forensic Semiotics Unit at Victoria College.
The Saredo Inquiry, officially known as the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Naples, presided by senator Giuseppe Saredo, president of the Italian Council of State, investigated corruption and bad governance in the city of Naples. The Commission was established in November 1900 and published its findings in October 1901.
The Mazzarella clan is a Campanian Camorra clan operating in the city of Naples. The clan is historically considered one of the most powerful groups of the Camorra.
Angelo Jannone is a former Italian colonel and commandant at carabinieri's corp, business consultant, manager, professor of criminology and writer. He is best known as one of the first infiltrators within the mafia and narcos families and as close collaborator of the judge Giovanni Falcone. He acted undercover in Colombian drug traffickers organizations linked to Camorristi and 'ndrine. His infiltration allowed seizure of 280 kilos cocaine and the arrest of over 40 people between Naples, Milan, Rome, Amsterdam and Venezuela. After his military career he subsequently joined the Telecom Italia Group as a manager. There, he fell under investigation for illegal counter-intelligence activities in the 2004 Telecom trial. He was accused by one of the people already under investigation, this accuser was subsequently convicted. During the trial he resigned from his position as manager in order to defend himself in the trial in which he was subsequently acquitted.
