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".
Michele Zaza was a member of the Camorra criminal organisation who was also initiated in the Sicilian Mafia. He headed the Zaza clan in Naples. Zaza was known as ’O Pazzo due to his outspoken and implausible public statements. He was one of the first Camorristi to emerge as a powerful organiser of the cigarette contraband industry in the 1960s and 1970s.
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.
The Nuova Famiglia was an Italian Camorra confederation created in the 1970s and headed by the most powerful Camorra bosses of the time, Carmine Alfieri, the Nuvoletta brothers, Michele Zaza, Luigi Giuliano and Antonio Bardellino, to face Raffaele Cutolo's Nuova Camorra Organizzata, and affiliated with the Sicilian Mafia.
On 27 April 1981, the Red Brigades (BR) kidnapped the 60-year-old Christian Democrat (DC) politician Ciro Cirillo and killed his two-man escort in the garage of his Naples apartment building. At the time, Cirillo directed reconstruction efforts in Campania devastated by the earthquake in the Irpinia region on 23 November 1980. He was released after a controversial deal with the Camorra; they did not negotiate with the BR and only asked them to release him. This happened several years after the Italian state had refused to negotiate with the BR in their kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, leading observers and critics to wonder what changed and the reasons behind the state's negotiation. Cirillo died in 2017.
Vincenzo Casillo was an Italian Camorrista and the second in command of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, a Camorra organization in Naples. His nickname was 'o Nirone.
The Nuova Camorra Organizzata was an Italian Camorra criminal organization founded in the late 1970s by a Neapolitan Camorrista, Raffaele Cutolo, in the region of Campania. It was also known by the initials NCO. The organization was established with the purpose of renewing the old rural Camorra, which dealt in contraband cigarettes and extortion schemes in the Neapolitan fruit market. To this end, Cutolo created a structured and hierarchical organization, in stark contrast to the traditional Camorra clans which are usually fragmented. The members of the NCO were often referred to by rival Camorristi and Italian law enforcement as "Cutoliani".
Giovanni Pandico is a former Italian Camorrista who was a member of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO), a Camorra organization in Naples. Pandico rose to become one of Camorra boss, Raffaele Cutolo's underwriters within the organization. After twelve years of imprisonment, he decided to collaborate with Italian justice and subsequently became a pentito in 1983. Pandico's revelations brought a massive crackdown on the NCO and led to the arrests of over 856 NCO members and affiliates on June 17, 1983, a day labeled by the Neapolitan press as the black day of the NCO.
Pasquale D'Amico is a former Italian Camorrista who was a senior member of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO), a Camorra organization in Naples. His nickname was 'o Cartunaro. D'Amico defected from the NCO and subsequently became a pentito in 1983. Among the pentiti, D'Amico was one of the highest-ranking due to his position within the NCO. He was the first high-ranking NCO informant to reveal Neapolitan crime boss, Raffaele Cutolo links with the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta.
Luigi Giuliano is a former Italian Camorrista who was the boss of the powerful Giuliano clan based in the district of Forcella, Naples. He had multiple nicknames including "'o rre" and "Lovigino", which is an amalgamation of Luigi and love. In 2002, he decided to collaborate with Italian law enforcement and became a pentito, a co-operating witness against organised crime.
The Vollaro clan is a Neapolitan Camorra clan operating in the area east of Naples, more specifically in the town of Portici and San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, a small village in the Vesuvius area.
The Contini clan is a powerful Neapolitan Camorra clan operating in the city of Naples, and more specifically in the area of the Naples Central Station. The clan's traditional powerbase is the Arenaccia district. It also operates in the Poggioreale, Vasto, Mercato and San Carlo all'Arena suburbs of Naples. The clan is also active outside Italy, particularly in Barcelona, Spain, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and in Eastern Europe. The Contini clan is also one of the founding clans of the Secondigliano Alliance, which is considered by the authorities as the most powerful Camorra group that is still active.
Giuseppe Puca was an Italian Camorrista, and the right hand of Raffaele Cutolo, boss of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO). He was known among criminal circles as 'o Giappone, due to his Japanese looks.
Assunta "Pupetta" Maresca was an Italian criminal who was a well-known figure in the Camorra. She made international newspaper headlines in the mid-1950s when she killed the murderer of her husband in revenge.
Rosetta Cutolo was an Italian criminal and the sister of the Camorra boss Raffaele Cutolo, head of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO), an organisation he built to renew the Camorra. As her brother spent most of his time behind bars from where he sent out his instructions, the everyday running of the enterprise was entrusted to his older sister, Rosetta. Her nickname was Uocchie 'e gghiaccio, meaning "ice eyes".
Guappo is a historical Italian criminal subculture and informal term of address in the Neapolitan language, roughly analogous to or meaning thug, swaggerer, pimp, braggart, or ruffian. While today the word is often used to indicate a member of the Camorra, a Mafia-type organisation in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy, the guapperia predates the modern Camorra and was originally a different and separate criminal subculture that considered itself very much independent of the Camorra.
The De Luca Bossa clan is a Neapolitan Camorra clan operating in the eastern suburbs of Naples, and more specifically in the area of Ponticelli and in the municipality of Cercola.
The Rinaldi clan is a Camorra clan operating in the area of San Giovanni a Teduccio, in the eastern area of the city of Naples. Since 2019 the clan has formed an alliance with the Ponticelli's De Luca Bossa clan, and Barra's Aprea-Cuccaro clan, called by the media Rinaldi-De Luca Bossa-Aprea, which has emerged as the most powerful Camorra group in the eastern region of Naples.
