Only beggar clans inept at business and desperate to survive still practice the kind of monthly extortions seen in Nanni Loy’s film Mi manda Picone, or the door-to-door rounds at Christmas, Easter, and on August 15. Everything has changed. The Nuvoletta clan of Marano, on the northern outskirts of Naples, set up a more efficient extortion racket based on reciprocal advantage and the taxing of supplies. Giuseppe Gala, known as Showman, had become one of the most valued reps in the food business. He was much in demand, representing Bauli and Von Holten, and through Vip Alimentari he became the exclusive Parmalat rep in Marano clan territory. He boasted of his talent in a wiretapped conversation submitted to the Naples DDA judges in the fall of 2003: “I’ve burned them all, we’re the strongest on the market.”
The companies Peppe Gala handled were, in fact, guaranteed representation throughout his territory as well as a high number of orders. And retailers and supermarkets were more than happy to deal with him since he could pressure suppliers into offering bigger discounts. Being a System man, Showman also controlled transportation, which meant he could ensure favorable prices and prompt delivery.
Products “adopted” by the clans are not imposed through intimidation but rather by means of advantageous pricing. The concerns Gala represented declared they had been victims of the Camorra racket and had had to submit to the diktat of the clans. Yet data from Confcommercio—the Italian business confederation—reveals that from 1998 to 2003 the companies that turned to Gala experienced a 40 to 80 percent increase in annual sales. Gala’s financial strategies even resolved the clans’ problems of ready cash. He went so far as to impose a surcharge on panettone, the ubiquitous Christmas cake, to give year-end bonuses to the families of imprisoned Nuvoletta clan members. Success was fatal to Showman, however. According to state witnesses, he tried to become the exclusive agent for the drug market as well. The Nuvoletta family wouldn’t hear of it. In January 2003 he was found dead in his car; he’d been burned alive.
The Nuvolettas are the only family outside Sicily that sits in the cupola, the high command of Cosa Nostra. Not simply allies or affiliates, they are one of the most powerful groups in the bosom of the Mafia, with structural ties to the Corleones. So powerful—according to pentito Giovanni Brusca—that when in the late 1990s the Sicilians decided to plant bombs all over Italy, they asked the Marano clan for advice and cooperation. The Nuvolettas thought the idea was crazy, a strategy that had more to do with political favors than military results. They refused to participate in the attacks or provide logistical support, a refusal expressed without any hint of reprisal. Totò Riina personally implored the boss Angelo Nuvoletta to corrupt the judges in his first mass trial, but here too the Marano clan refused to help the military wing of the Corleone family. During the feuds within La Nuova Famiglia, after their victory over Cutolo, the Nuvolettas sent for Giovanni Brusca, the boss of San Giovanni Jato and the murderer of Judge Giovanni Falcone.* They wanted Brusca to eliminate five people in Campania and dissolve two of them in acid. They called him the way you’d call a plumber. He disclosed to the judges the technique for dissolving Luigi and Vittorio Vastarella:
We gave instructions for the purchase of a hundred liters of hydrochloric acid, and we also needed two-hundred-liter metal containers, the kind normally used for storing olive oil, with the top part cut off. In our experience, each container takes fifty liters of acid, and seeing as how the suppression of two people was anticipated, we had them prepare two.
The Nuvolettas, in cooperation with the Nettuno and Polverino subclans, also altered narcotraffic investment strategies, creating a popular shareholding system for cocaine. A 2004 Naples DDA investigation revealed that the clan was allowing everyone to participate in the acquisition of cocaine via intermediaries. Retirees, workers, and small businessmen would hand over money to agents, who then invested it in drug lots. If you invested your pension of 600 euros in cocaine, you’d double your money in a month. The only guarantee was the middleman’s word, but the investment proved regularly advantageous. The profit far outweighed the risk, especially compared with what one would have made in bank interest. The only disadvantage was organizational: small investors were often required to stash pats of cocaine—a way to distribute the supply and make it practically impossible to confiscate. By involving the lower-middle class, who were far removed from criminal activity but tired of trusting the banks with their assets, the Camorra clans increased the amount of capital available for investment. The Nuvoletta-Polverino group also metamorphosed retail distribution, making barbers and tanning centers the new cocaine retailers. They used straw men to reinvest narcotraffic profits in apartments, hotels, stock in service companies, private schools, even art galleries.
The person accused of handling the majority of Nuvoletta assets was Pietro Nocera. One of the most powerful managers in the area, he preferred to travel by Ferrari or private jet. In 2005 the Naples Court ordered the seizure of properties and companies worth more than 30 million euros, a mere 5 percent of his economic empire. Salvatore Speranza, who turned state’s witness, disclosed that Nocera administered all the Nuvoletta clan money and was responsible for “the organization’s investments in lands and the building trade in general.” The Nuvolettas invest in Emilia Romagna, Veneto, Marche, and Lazio through Enea, a production and labor cooperative that Nocera managed even in hiding. Enea obtained public contracts for millions of euros in Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Venice, Ascoli Piceno, and Frosinone, all with extraordinary turnover. Nuvoletta business spread to Spain years ago. Nocera went to Tenerife to argue with a clan leader over construction costs for an imposing building complex. Nocera accused him of spending too much on expensive materials. I only ever saw the complex on the Internet: an eloquent website, an enormous complex of swimming pools and cement that the Nuvolettas built to get in on the tourism industry in Spain.
Paolo Di Lauro is a product of the Marano school; he began his criminal career as a Nuvoletta lieutenant. But he gradually took his distance and in the 1990s became the right-hand man of Michele D’Alessandro, the boss of Castellammare, representing him when he went into hiding. Di Lauro’s plan was to coordinate the open-air drug markets using the same logic with which he’d managed store chains and jacket factories. Di Lauro realized that, after Gennaro Licciardi’s death in prison, northern Naples could become the largest open-air drug market Italy or Europe had ever seen, and completely controlled by his men. Paolo Di Lauro had always acted silently and was more skilled at finances than fighting; he never openly invaded other bosses’ territories and never allowed himself to be traced in inquiries or searches.
Among the first to disclose the organization’s flowchart was the Camorra informant Gaetano Conte. An informant with a particularly interesting story: a carabiniere who served as Francesco Cossiga’s bodyguard in Rome. The qualities that led to his escorting the president of the Italian Republic also promoted him to friendship with Di Lauro. After being involved in clan extortions and drug trafficking, Conte decided to collaborate with the authorities, offering a wealth of information and details only a carabiniere would know how to provide.
Paolo Di Lauro is known as Ciruzzo ‘o milionario, Ciruzzo the millionaire. A ridiculous nickname, but such labels have a precise logic, a calibrated sedimentation. I’ve always heard System people called by their nicknames, to the point where first and last names are often diluted or forgotten. No one chooses his own nickname; it emerges suddenly out of somewhere, for some reason, and someone picks up on it. Camorra nicknames are determined by destiny. Paolo Di Lauro was rebaptized Ciruzzo ‘o milionario by Luigi Giuliano, who once saw Di Lauro take his place at the poker table as dozens of hundred-thousand-lire bills fell out of his pockets. “Who’s this,” Giuliano exclaimed, “Ciruzzo ‘o milionario?” A name born on a drunken evening, a flash, the perfect wisecrack.
The anthology of nicknames is infinite. The Nuova Famiglia boss Carmine Alfieri got his name ‘o ‘ntufato, the angry one, thanks to the dissatisfied sneer
he wears constantly. Then there are ancestral nicknames that stick to the heirs; Mario Fabbrocino, the Vesuvius-area boss who colonized Argentina with Camorra money, is known as ‘o graunar—the coal merchant—because his ancestors sold coal. Other nicknames spring from Camorristi passions, such as Nicola ‘o wrangler Luongo for his fixation with Wrangler four-wheel drives, the System men’s vehicle of choice. A whole series of nicknames are based on physical traits, such as Giovanni Birra ‘a mazza—club or bat—for his long, thin body; Costantino capaianca Iacomino for his premature capelli bianchi or white hair; Ciro Mazzarella ‘o scellone or angel, for his pronounced shoulder blades that look like an angel’s wings; Nicola ‘o mussuto Pianese for his skin so white it looks like dried cod; Rosario Privato mignolino or pinky finger; Dario De Simone ‘o nano, the dwarf. There are inexplicable nicknames such as that of Antonio di Fraia ‘u urpacchiello, which means a riding crop made from a dried donkey’s penis. Then there’s Carmine Di Girolamo, known as ‘o sbirro or the narc for his ability to involve policemen and carabinieri in his operations. For some unknown reason Ciro Monteriso is known as ‘o mago, the wizard. Pasquale Gallo of Torre Annunziata is ‘o bellillo, or bello for his sweet face. Others are old family names: the Lo Russos are i capitoni or eels, the Mallardos are the Carlantoni, the Belfortes are the Mazzacane—dog killers—and the Piccolos the Quaqquaroni. Vincenzo Mazzarella is ‘o pazzo, the crazy one, and Antonio Di Biasi is pavesino for his habit of munching on pavesino biscuits while out doing a job. Domenico Russo, boss of the Quartieri Spagnoli area in Naples, is called Mimì dei cani, Little Domenico of the dogs, because as a kid he sold puppies along Via Toledo. As for Antonio Carlo D’Onofrio, known as Carlucciello ‘o mangiavati’—Little Charles the cat eater—legend has it that he learned to shoot using stray cats as targets. Gennaro Di Chiara, who bolted violently anytime someone touched his face, earned the name file scupierto or live wire. There are also nicknames based on untranslatable onomatopoeic expressions such as that of Agostino Tardi, known as picc pocc, Domenico di Ronza scipp scipp, or the De Simone family, known as quaglia quaglia, the Aversanos, known as zig zag, Raffaele Giuliano ‘o zuì, and Antonio Bifone zuzù.
All it took for Antonio Di Vicino to become lemon was to order the same drink several times. Vincenzo Benitozzi’s round face earned him the name Cicciobello or fat boy, and Gennaro Lauro became ‘o diciassette, perhaps because his street number was 17. And Giovanni Aprea was punt ‘e curtiello—puntare il coltello or point the knife—because his grandfather played the role of an old Camorrista who teaches the boys to use a knife in Pasquale Squitieri’s 1974 film I guappi.
A well-calibrated nickname, such as Francesco Schiavone’s famous, ferocious Sandokan, can make or break the media fortune of a boss. He earned it for his resemblance to Kabir Bedi, the star of the Italian television series Sandokan, the Tiger of Malaysia, based on Emilio Salgari’s novel. Or Pasquale Tavoletta, known as Zorro for his resemblance to the actor in the TV series. Or Luigi Giuliano, ‘o re—the king—also known as Lovigino because in intimate moments his American lovers would whisper, “I love Luigino.” His brother Carmine is ‘o lione, the lion. Francesco Verde’s alias is ‘o negus, a title of Ethiopian emperors, in honor of his stateliness and longevity as boss. Mario Schiavone is called Menelek after the famous Ethiopian emperor who opposed Italian troops, and Vincenzo Carobene is Gheddafi for his uncanny resemblance to the son of the Libyan general. The boss Francesco Bidognetti is known as Cicciotto di Mezzanotte, because anyone who got in his way would see midnight—the end—even at dawn, but some claim it was because he worked his way up through the ranks by protecting prostitutes. His whole clan came to be known as the Midnight clan.
Nearly every boss has a nickname, an unequivocally unique, identifying feature. A nickname for a boss is like stigmata for a saint, the mark of membership in the System. Anybody can call himself Francesco Schiavone, but there’s only one Sandokan. Anybody can be named Carmine Alfieri, but only one turns around when he hears ‘o ‘ntufato. Anyone can call himself Francesco Verde, but only one answers to the name ‘o negus. Anyone can be listed as Paolo Di Lauro at the registrar’s office, but there’s only one Ciruzzo ‘o milionario.
Ciruzzo had decided to organize his affairs quietly, to use extensive force but remain low key. For a long time he remained unknown even to the police. The only time he was summoned by the authorities before he went into hiding was for an incident involving his son Nunzio, who assaulted a professor who’d dared to reprimand him. Paolo Di Lauro was in direct contact with South American cartels and created vast distribution networks through his alliance with Albanian cartels. Narcotraffic follows precise routes these days. Cocaine heads from South America to Spain, where it’s either picked up or sent overland to Albania. Heroin, on the other hand, comes from Afghanistan, traveling through Bulgaria, Kosovo, and Albania. Hashish and marijuana cross the Mediterranean from North Africa by way of the Turks and Albanians. Di Lauro had direct contact with every point of entry into the drug market, and by adopting a painstaking strategy he became a successful entrepreneur in both leather and narcotics. In 1989 he founded the famous Confezioni Valent di Paolo Di Lauro & Co. Scheduled by statute to terminate activity in 2002, the company was seized in November 2001 by the Court of Naples. Valent had been awarded numerous contracts for cash-and-carry operations throughout Italy, and its corporate potential was enormous, ranging from furniture to fabrics, from meatpacking to mineral water. Valent supplied meals to public and private institutions and oversaw the butchering of all kinds of meats. Its stated objective was to construct hotels, restaurants, entertainment chains, and anything “appropriate for leisure.” According to the statute, “The company may acquire lands and contract or subcontract buildings, shopping centers, or housing.” The City of Naples granted its commercial licence in 1993, and the company was administered by Paolo Di Lauro’s son Cosimo. For reasons connected to the clan, Paolo Di Lauro exited the scene in 1996, passing his shares to his wife, Luisa. The Di Lauro dynasty is built on self-denial. Luisa Di Lauro produced ten children; like the great dames of Italian industry, she increased the number of offspring to keep pace with the family business. Cosimo, Vincenzo, Ciro, Marco, Nunzio, and Salvatore are all clan members; the rest are still minors. Paolo Di Lauro had a predilection for investments in France, with shops in Nice, on rue de Charenton 129 in Paris, and 22 quai Perrache in Lyon. He wanted Italian fashion in France to be shaped by his stores and transported by his trucks; he wanted the power of Scampia to be smelled on the Champs-Élysées.
But in Secondigliano the great Di Lauro company was beginning to show signs of strain. Its many branches had grown hurriedly and autonomously, and the air was thickening in the drug markets. In Scampia, on the other hand, there was the hope that everything would be resolved like the last time, when a solution had been found over a drink. A special drink, consumed while Di Lauro’s son Domenico was lying at death’s door in the hospital after a serious road accident. Domenico was a troubled boy. The children of bosses often fall into a sort of delirium of omnipotence, believing that entire cities and their inhabitants are at their disposal. According to police investigations, in October 2003 Domenico, together with his bodyguard and a group of friends, attacked the town of Casoria, smashing windows, garages, and cars, burning trash bins, splattering doors with spray paint, and melting plastic doorbells with cigarette lighters. Damage his father was able to pay for in silence, with the diplomacy of families who have to make up for any disasters their scions create without compromising their own authority. Domenico was rounding a curve on his motorcycle when he lost control and crashed. He died of his injuries after a few days in a coma. This tragic episode led to a meeting of the leaders, a punishment as well as an amnesty. Everyone in Scampia knows the story. It may not be true, but it has become legendary and is important for understanding how conflicts are resolved within the Camorra.
Legend has it that Paolo Di Lauro’s dauphin, Gennaro Marino, known as McKay, went to comfort the
boss in the hospital where Domenico lay dying. Di Lauro accepted his solace and then took him aside and offered him a drink: he pissed in a glass and handed it to McKay. Word had reached the boss of his favorite’s behavior, things he simply could not condone. McKay had made some economic decisions without consulting him, and sums of money had been withdrawn without his knowledge. The boss was aware of his dauphin’s desire for autonomy, and he longed to pardon him, to consider it an excess of exuberance on the part of someone who is too good at what he does. Legend has it that McKay drank it all, every last drop. A swig of piss resolved the first schism to occur within the leadership of the Di Lauro clan. A transient truce, one that no kidney could have drained dry later on.
*Falcone, who was killed on May 23, 1992, was an important anti-Mafia magistrate and one of the major figures in the 1986–87 Maxi Trial, in which 360 Mafiosi were convicted. Falcone and his wife, Francesca Morvillo—also a magistrate—and three policemen were killed when a roadside bomb exploded as they drove from the airport to Palermo.—Trans.
THE SECONDIGLIANO WAR
McKay and Angioletto had made up their minds. They’d decided to form their own group and wanted to make it official. All the old guard had agreed, and they’d made it clear they weren’t trying to start a conflict. They wanted to become competitors, fair competitors, on the open market. Side by side, but independent. And so—according to the pentito Pietro Esposito—they sent a message to Cosimo Di Lauro, the cartel’s regent. They wanted to meet with his father, Paolo, the top man, the boss, the association’s number one. To talk to him in person, tell him they didn’t agree with his reorganization decisions, remind him that they had children of their own now. They wanted to look him in the eye. Enough of this passing word from mouth to mouth, of messages sticky from the saliva of too many tongues—cell phones were out of the question because they could reveal his hiding place. Genny McKay wanted to meet with Paolo Di Lauro, the boss who was responsible for his rise in the business.
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