Blood Brotherhoods

by John Dickie

  P. Pezzino, Mafia: Industria della violenza, Florence, 1995.

  F. Renda, Storia della mafia, Palermo, 1997.

  W. Semeraro, ‘Lo scandalo di Agrigento impallidisce dinanzi ai fatti che abbiamo in archivio’, Giornale di Sicilia, 6/8/1966. ‘The mafia in Sicily is a mental state’.

  N. Tranfaglia, Mafia, politica, affari, Rome–Bari, 1992. Extracts from the final reports of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry quoted p. 55, p. 154.

  ‘Dichiarazione del compagno La Torre’, L’Unità, 1/7/1963. ‘The truth is that there is no sector of the economy . . . ’.

  46. The mafia-isation of the camorra

  P. Arlacchi, Addio Cosa Nostra. La vita di Tommaso Buscetta, Milan, 1994. ‘Now we’d reached as many as 35–40,000 cases’, p. 183; ‘fraudster mentality’ ‘to play it sly’, p. 185.

  F. Barbagallo, Il potere della camorra (1973–1998), Turin, 1999. On Zaza’s turnover, p. 7.

  A. Calderone with P. Arlacchi, Gli uomini del disonore, Milan, 1992.

  P. Monzini, Gruppi criminali a Napoli e a Marsiglia. La delinquenza organizzata nella storia di due città (1820–1990), Rome, 1999. Arlacchi quote, p. 127, provides the statistics for the turnover of tobacco smuggling.

  Istruttoria Stajano.

  I. Sales, La camorra le camorre, Rome, 2nd edn, 1993.

  ‘Ritorna in prigione la contrabbandiera’, Corriere della Sera, 28/6/1992. On the arrest of Concetta Muccardo on heroin-dealing charges.

  47. The mushroom-pickers of Montalto

  P. Arlacchi, La mafia imprenditrice. Dalla Calabria al centro dell’inferno, Milan, 2007 (original edn 1982). On 55% of the earth-moving and transport sub-contracts going to Piromalli, p. 104.

  S. Boemi, ‘L’atteggiarsi delle associazioni mafiose sulla base delle esperienze processuali acquisite: la ’ndrangheta’, Quaderni del Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, 99, 1996.

  E. Ciconte, ’Ndrangheta dall’Unità a oggi, Rome, 1992.

  D. Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia, London, 1993.

  S. Gambino, La mafia in Calabria, Reggio Calabria, 1975.

  La mafia a Montalto. Sentenza 2 ottobre del Tribunale di Locri, Reggio Calabria, 1971. ‘There’s no Mico Tripodo’s ’ndrangheta here!’ p. 27; ‘superficial’ and ‘desultory’, p. 128; ‘restorative vaccine in the bodies of these criminal societies’, p. 207; ‘living symbol of organized crime’s omnipotence and invincibility’, p. 258; ‘This is an argument that might seem like a travesty’, p. 258.

  S. Lupo, Storia della mafia, Rome, 1993. ‘Repress what? An idea? A mentality?’, p. 181.

  F. Pierini, ‘I mafiosi si difendono sull’Aspromonte. Non abbiamo sparato’, L’Europeo, 13/11/1969.

  Processo Olimpia. ‘This man was the overall boss’, from ‘Parte II°: Anni Settanta: ‘Da Montalto al convegno di contrada Acqua del Gallo’, p. 288, words of ’ndrangheta defector Giacomo Lauro.

  F. Silvestri, ‘Dinasty della Piana’, Narcomafie, February, 1999.

  ‘Sentenza, emessa il 22 dicembre 1968 dalla Corte di Assise di Catanzaro, nei confronti di Angelo La Barbera ed altri, imputati di vari omicidi, sequestri di persone, violenza privata ed altri reati’, in Documentazione antimafia, vol. 4, tomo 17.

  ‘Ora c’è la mafia delle autostrade’, La Stampa, 3/3/1970. ‘There is always someone who rebels against the monopoly held by some cosche’.

  48. Mafiosi on the barricades

  E. Ciconte, Processo alla ’Ndrangheta, Rome–Bari, 1996.

  F. Cuzzola, Reggio 1970. Storie e memorie della rivolta, Donzelli, Rome, 2007.

  P. Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy. Society and Politics, 1943–1988, London, 1990.

  Processo Olimpia.

  49. The kidnapping industry

  L. Ballinari and C. Castellacci, Carceriere fuorilegge: la storia del sequestro di Cristina Mazzotti (Fatti e misfatti), Milan, 1978. ‘Our conversations always came back to the crime of the moment’, p. 39.

  A. Calderone with P. Arlacchi, Gli uomini del disonore, Milan, 1992. ‘The mafia doesn’t run prostitution’, p. 5; ‘the mafia didn’t have any money’, pp. 85–6; Corleo kidnapping ‘an extremely serious matter that created a huge shock in Cosa Nostra’, p. 130.

  O. Cancila, Palermo, Bari, 2000.

  E. Deaglio, Raccolto rosso: la mafia, l’Italia e poi venne giù tutto, Milan, 1995.

  B. Fontana and P. Serarcageli, L’Italia dei sequestri, Rome, 1991. On 650 citizens kidnapped by criminals, p. 214.

  D. Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia, London, 1993. ‘ . . . this bloke must die’, p. 178.

  S. Gambino, La mafia in Calabria, Reggio Calabria, 1975.

  N. Machiavelli, The Prince, translated by N.H. Thomson, New York, 1914.

  G. Moroni, Cronista in Calabria. Storie di ’Ndrangheta, sequestri di persona, delitti eccellenti nel racconto di un giornalista-testimone, Cosenza, 1993. ‘I asked, I begged my jailers to cut my ear off. I was totally destroyed, I had lost all hope’, p. 120; between 1969 and 1988, seventy-one people vanished and were never seen alive again, Pier Luigi Vigna cited p. 220.

  J. Pearson, Painfully Rich. J. Paul Getty and His Heirs, London, 1995. ‘I have fourteen grandchildren’, p. 176.

  Istruttoria Stajano.

  O. Rossani, L’industria dei sequestri, Milan, 1978.

  Berlusconi’s views on Mangano (‘[Mangano] was a person who behaved extremely well with us’) were given during the radio programme 28 minuti, RadioDue, 9/4/2008. Consulted via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=it&gl=IT&v=PD4ixdKJzOE.

  ‘Rapito il figlio di Vassallo’, L’Unità, 9/6/1971.

  Tribunale di Palermo Il Sezione Penale, Sentenza nei confronti di Dell’Utri Marcello e Cinà Gaetano, 11 dicembre 2004. ‘ . . . complex strategy destined to make an approach to the entrepreneur Berlusconi’, p. 171.

  50. The Most Holy Mother and the First ’Ndrangheta War

  P. Arlacchi, La mafia imprenditrice. Dalla Calabria al centro dell’inferno, Milan, 2007 (original edn 1982). ‘Paolo and Giorgio De Stefano attended university for a few years’, quoted on p. 129; 3% cut of profits from construction of the Gioia Tauro steelworks, p. 115.

  L. Barone, ‘L’ascesa della ’ndrangheta negli ultimi due decenni’, Meridiana, 7–8, 1989–90.

  S. Boemi, ‘L’atteggiarsi delle associazioni mafiose sulla base delle esperienze processuali acquisite: la ’ndrangheta’, Quaderni del Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, 99, 1996. The quotation from Leonardo Messina, p. 13.

  E. Ciconte, Processo alla ’ndrangheta, Rome–Bari, 1996. On 233 murders in three years, p. 108.

  S. Gambino, ‘Calabria: i nuovi “malavitosi”’, Il Ponte, 11–12, 1976.

  P. Ginsborg, Italy and its Discontents, Penguin, London, 2001. ‘All the heads of the secret services, 195 officers of the various armed corps of the Republic’, pp. 144–45.

  Processo Olimpia. ‘Bastardisation’ of the Honoured Society’s rules: the expression is from ’ndrangheta defector Gaetano Costa, p. 319.

  R. Sciarrone, Mafie nuove, mafie vecchie. Radicamento ed espansione, Rome, 1998.

  For the comparative statistics on membership of Cosa Nostra and ’ndrangheta, pp. 53–54.

  F. Silvestri, ‘Dinasty nella Piana’, Narcomafie, February, 1999. ‘ . . . only his thigh bones were left over’, p. 19.

  ‘Caccia ai due killer del night di Reggio C.’, L’Unità, 26/11/1974. For the Roof Garden attack.

  51. A brief history of junk

  Homer, The Odyssey. Rendered into English Prose by Samuel Butler, London, 1900. Book IV, verses 220–21.

  C. Lamour and M.R. Lamberti, The Second Opium War, London, 1972. On over 200,000 heroin addicts in USA by end of First World War, p. 7.

  A.W. McCoy, Drug Traffic. Narcotics and Organized Crime in Australia, Sydney, 1980. In 1971, 10–15% of all US troops were using heroin, p. 23.

  A.W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA complicity in the global drug trade, New York, 1991.

  P. Pezzino, Mafia: Industria della violenza, Florence, 1995. Rep
roduces important passages on narcotics from the Commissione Parlamentare d’Inchiesta.

  C. Sterling, The Mafia, London, 1990. ‘Narcotics track star’, quoted p. 71.

  D. Twitchett and J.K. Fairbank (eds), The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 1, edited by J.K. Fairbank. F. Wakeman Jr, ‘The Canton trade and the Opium War’; J.K. Fairbank, ‘The creation of the treaty system’. ‘The most long-continued and systematic international crime of modern times’, p. 213.

  W.W. Willoughby, Opium as an International Problem. The Geneva Conferences, Baltimore, 1925. ‘By 1924 no more than 110,000 addicts in the United States’, p. 6.

  52. Mr Champagne: Heroin broker

  P. Arlacchi, La mafia imprenditrice. Dalla Calabria al centro dell’inferno, Milan, 2007 (original edn 1982). By 1980, Italy had more heroin addicts per head of population than did the United States, p. 187.

  O. Barrese (ed.), Mafia, politica, pentiti: la relazione del presidente Luciano Violante e le deposizioni di Antonio Calderone, Tommaso Buscetta, Leonardo Messina, Gaspare Mutolo: atti della Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sulla mafia, Soveria Mannelli, 1993. ‘When it comes to drug trafficking, if deals are small then they can be managed by a Family’, p. 420; ‘God bless these prisons!’, p. 497.

  E. Deaglio, Raccolto rosso: la mafia, l’Italia e poi venne giù tutto, Milan, 1995.

  L. Galluzzo, F. La Licata, S. Lodato (eds), Rapporto sulla mafia degli anni ‘80, Palermo, 1986. Suite in the five-star Michelangelo Hotel as his office, p. 322.

  Istruttoria maxiprocesso, vol. 9. Ferrari Dino and Alfa Romeo GTV 2000, p. 1763.

  L. Paoli, Mafia Brotherhoods: organized crime, Italian style, Oxford, 2003.

  V. Scafetta, U Baruni di Partanna Mondello. Storia di Mutolo Gaspare mafioso, pentito, Rome, 2003. ‘I’ve never felt fear the evening before a murder’, p. 55; ‘All you have to do is set up good relationships with a few local administrators’, p. 61; ‘Gentlemen, we have the chance to earn ten times as much with drugs’, p. 63; ‘If there are any rascals in the story, it’s the Swiss’, p. 62; ‘Gaspare, promise me: as soon as you get out, call me’, p. 65.

  A. Stille, Excellent Cadavers, London, 1995. A fine journalistic reconstruction of the dramatic events in Sicily in the 1980s that I have drawn on for this chapter and several following.

  53. The Transatlantic Syndicate

  T. Blickman, ‘The Rothschilds of the Mafia on Aruba’, Transnational Organized Crime, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1997.

  Corte Suprema di Cassazione, Seconda parte penale, Sentenza Andreotti, 15/10/2004. ‘An authentic, stable and friendly availability’, p. 83.

  Istruttoria maxiprocesso, vol. 5, p. 847. Reproduces the conversation in the ice-cream bar in Saint-Léonard, Montreal’s Little Italy.

  A. Jamieson, ‘Cooperation Between Organized Crime Groups Around The World’, Jahrbuch für internationale Sicherheitspolitik, December, 1999. For the international traces of the Transatlantic Syndicate, and the marriage of Pasquale Cuntrera’s son, p. 68.

  S. Lupo, Quando la mafia trovò l’America. Storia di un intreccio intercontinentale, 1888–2008, Turin, 2008. For an astute analysis of this episode, and (what Lupo calls) the ‘third mafia’.

  J.D. Pistone, Donnie Brasco, New York, 1989.

  54. The Professor

  F. Barbagallo, Il potere della camorra (1973–1998), Turin, 1999. 7,000 NCO affiliates, p. 13.

  E. Ciconte, Processo alla ’ndrangheta, Rome–Bari, 1996. Cutolo’s initiation into the ’ndrangheta, pp. 108–10.

  R. Cutolo, Poesie e pensieri, Naples, 1980.

  S. De Gregorio, Camorra, Naples, 1981. Quotes the extracts from the psychiatric analyses of Cutolo, p. 34.

  M. Jacquemet, Credibility in Court. Communicative Practices in Camorra Trials, Cambridge, 1996. Juvenile inmates in Campania, p. 29; Cutolo’s living expenses in prison, p. 43.

  M. Jouakim, ‘O Malommo, Naples, 1979.

  A. Lamberti, ‘“Imposture” letterarie e “simulacra” poetici. Il ruolo di Ferdinando Russo nella costruzione dell’immaginario di massa sulla “camorra”’, in P. Bianchi and P. Sabbatino (eds), Le rappresentazioni della camorra, Naples, 2009.

  L. Rossi, Camorra. Un mese a Ottaviano il paese in cui la vita di un uomo non vale nulla, Milan, 1983. Contains the harrowing interviews with young camorristi I have quoted here, and has a very useful introduction on the ‘South Bronxes’ of Campania by Pino Arlacchi.

  M. Savio (with F. Venditti), La mala vita. Lettera di un boss della camorra al figlio, Milan, 2006. This camorrista close to Cutolo is the source for Cutolo’s challenge to ’o Malommo and his aptitudes as a ‘talent scout’, pp. 35–37.

  La Stampa: on Cutolo’s first murder, ‘Sfiora una ragazza con l’auto, provoca un litigio e uccide il paciere’, 26/2/1963 and ‘Ergastolo all’automobilista che uccise a rivoltellate un passante dopo un incidente’, 29/12/1965; on Cutolo as drug-dealer, ‘Dirigevano dal manicomio il traffico di stupefacenti’, 13/10/1974.

  PART X: THE SLAUGHTER

  55. Blood orgy

  P. Allum and F. Allum, ‘The resistible rise of the new Neapolitan Camorra’, in S. Gundle and S. Parker (eds), The New Italian Republic, London, 1996. More than 900 died in the camorra wars of 1979–83, p. 238.

  L. Brancaccio, ‘Guerre di camorra: i clan napoletani tra faide e scissioni’, in G. Gribaudi (ed.), Traffici criminali. Camorra, mafie e reti internazionali dell’illegalità, Turin, 2009.

  For deeper analysis of numbers:

  Commissione parlamentare antimafia, Camorra e politica: relazione approvata dalla Commissione il 21 dicembre 1993, Rome, 1994. For the estimate of murders between 1981 and 1990, p. 3.

  E. Deaglio, Raccolto rosso: la mafia, l’Italia e poi venne giù tutto, Milan, 1995. Estimate of total deaths in mafia wars and comparison with N. Ireland, p. 9.

  P. Hofmann, ‘Italy gets tough with the mafia’, New York Times, 13/11/1983. For the opinions of Alberto Moravia.

  F. Messina, ‘Cosa Nostra trapanese: gli anni del dominio corleonese’, unpublished PhD chapter, 2011.

  Sutton Index of Deaths. Online resource for calculating number of victims in the Northern Ireland Troubles: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/.

  ‘Palermo capitale mondiale dell’eroina’, La Stampa, 10/10/1981. ‘Blood orgy’.

  ‘Altro omicidio ieri a Palermo’, La Stampa, 31/12/1982. ‘Don’t die!’

  The figures for the number of dead are from various dates in La Stampa.

  56. The New Family: A group portrait

  Corte di Assise di Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Sentenza contro Abbate Antonio, + 129, ‘Sentenza Spartacus’, 15/9/2005.

  S. De Gregorio, I nemici di Cutolo, Naples, 1983. ‘ . . . many of the crimes carried out by Umberto Ammaturo were, in reality, dreamed up in her head’, p. 38; ‘If Cutolo was here instead of me, you wouldn’t be making such a racket’, p. 33.

  L. Gay, ‘L’atteggiarsi delle associazioni mafiose sulla base delle esperienze processuali acquisite: la camorra’, Quaderni del Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, 99, 1996.

  C. Longrigg, Mafia women, London, 1997.

  D.A. Maradona, El Diego, London, 2004 (original edn 2000). ‘I admit it was a seductive world’, pp. 98–9.

  M. Marmo, ‘La rima amore/onore di Pupetta Maresca. Una primadonna nella camorra degli anni cinquanta’, Meridiana, 67, 2010.

  I. Sales, Le strade della violenza: malviventi e bande di camorra a Napoli, Naples, 2006. ‘One day the people of Campania will understand that a crust of bread eaten in freedom’ and ‘In my eyes they were “half mafiosi”’, p. 154; ‘In Forcella it isn’t possible to live without breaking the state’s laws’, p. 173.

  ‘Ucciso e mutilato un uomo di Cutolo’, La Stampa, 22/1/1982. ‘Demented, diabetic fanatic’.

  ‘Pupetta Maresca sfida il “boss” Cutolo’, La Stampa, 14/2/1982.

  ‘Il boss replica alla Maresca’, L’Unita, 20/2/1982. ‘Maybe Pupetta said those things to attract attention.’

  ‘Mort
i ammazzati 515 e 130 desaparacidos di lupara’, Stampa Sera, 7/1/1983. On 364 killed; Annamaria Esposito murder.

  ‘Maradona alle nozze del boss’, L’Unità, 14/3/1989.

  ‘“Bambulella,” il camorrista decapitato. Dopo 27 anni trovati i suoi assassini’, Corriere del Mezzogiorno, 13/2/2009.

  57. Catastrophe economy

  F. Barbagallo, Napoli fine Novecento: politici, camorristi, imprenditori, Turin, 1997.

  F. Barbagallo, Il potere della camorra (1973–1998), Turin, 1999.

  J. Chubb, ‘Three earthquakes: political response, reconstruction and the institutions: Belice (1968), Friuli (1976), Campania (1980)’, in J. Dickie, J. Foot, and F.M. Snowden (eds), Disastro! Disasters in Italy Since 1860: culture, politics, society, Palgrave, 2002.

  Commissione parlamentare antimafia, Camorra e politica: relazione approvata dalla Commissione il 21 dicembre 1993, Rome, 1994. On Cirillo and patronage, p. 135; ‘to demonstrate to Cutolo that he was finished’, p. 165.

  I. Sales, La camorra le camorre, (2nd edn), Rome, 1993. ‘I’m not ruling out the fact that bumping him off would have been a pleasure for me’, p. 80.

  R. Saviano, Gomorra: viaggio nell’impero economico e nel sogno di dominio della camorra, Milano, 2006. On the lasting resonance of Il camorrista, p. 275.

  M. Travaglio, ‘Un altro martire’, blog from www.voglioscendere.ilcannocchiale.it, 10/8/2008. For the extracts from judge’s ruling on Gava.

  La Storia Siamo Noi: Il caso Cirillo. TV documentary containing many interviews with protagonists at www.lastoriasiamonoi.rai.it/puntate/il-caso-cirillo/798/default.aspx. ‘At number 275, Riviera di Chiaia, under a rubbish bin, you will find communiqué number one.’

  ‘Il Pci si chiede “Chi ha pagato?”’, La Stampa, 25/7/1981. ‘Without any negotiation and without any concession on the part of organs of the state faced with blackmail from an armed band’.

  58. The Magliana Band and the Sacred United Crown

  E. Ciconte, Storia criminale. La resistibile ascesa di mafia, ’ndrangheta e camorra dall’Ottocento ai giorni nostri, Soveria Mannelli, 2008. For very interesting observations on the increasing ties between the mafias, and on the Mala Vita.

  ‘Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia e sulle altre associazioni criminali similari’, Mafia, politica, pentiti: la relazione del presidente Luciano Violante e le deposizioni di Antonio Calderone, Tommaso Buscetta, Leonardo Messina, Gaspare Mutolo, Soveria Mannelli, 1993. ‘In Piedmont, the Calabrians have taken over the region’, testimony of Leonardo Messina, pp. 321–2.