Quarrel

Campania on the map of Italy.

La Campania and its provinces, region of origin of the Camorra.

The Camorra is a mafia criminal organization from the Campania region, Italy, whose most influential groups are found in the cities of Naples and Casal di Principe (in the province of Caserta). Like the neighboring mafias (the Sacra corona unita and the 'Ndrangheta), in addition to drug trafficking, the Camorra also focuses on public procurement and money laundering, and its clans also infiltrate the politics of their respective areas.

The Camorra is mainly present in the Campania region, but some clans have also spread to other regions, such as Lazio and Emilia-Romagna. In addition, the Camorra has links in other countries, particularly Spain, but also France, the Netherlands and Morocco, among others. Police investigations have shown that the Camorra generally maintains alliances with other Italian mafias ('Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra and Sacra Corona Unita), and with Chinese, Nigerian organized crime and Albanian. The Camorra also has various ties to South American drug cartels. According to Fortune, the Camorra is the third largest organized crime group in the world, with an estimated revenue of $5 billion per year. According to researchers, an estimated 114 clans and 4,500 affiliates operate in the Campania region.

Unlike Cosa Nostra, the structure of the Camorra is more horizontal than vertical, since there is no single commonly recognized leader. The Camorra is divided into individual groups called clans. Each capo is the head of a clan, in which there may be tens or hundreds of members, depending on the power and structure of the clan. Therefore, this gives rise to numerous armed confrontations between rival clans for control of traffic and territories.

Word origin

The etymology of the term «Camorra» is quite uncertain and lends itself to many interpretations, but the most accepted is the thesis that «camorra» comes from the Neapolitan dialect term c'a morra (literally, "with the group", in reference to the street groups that played the popular game of morra, in Naples), a name with which gangs of criminals who controlled gambling and prostitution in the Kingdom of Naples, from 1300 to 1800.

Several others are the hypotheses of the origin of the term and all of them can find a root in some events and customs of the medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Neapolitan society:

• Gamurra was an organization of mercenaries paid by Pisa that, in the centuryXIII"I kept order" in Sardinia.
• For the indumentary of such mercenaries: there was a typical short jacket of the Renaissance called "gamurra".
• The term would be related to the word Neapolitan morra, which may also have the meaning of "agrupation of mischiefs" understood as frotta (pandilla) and rissa (chuckles)
• In 1735, an official document of the Kingdom of Naples was observed explaining that gamorra or camo, derivative of the term in Latin camerarius (bearer), it was the name that was already given to the rate that had to be paid, impositively, in gambling places, for the risk of rallies or fights.
• The term Neapolitan cap'a morra, this is, in Italian: capo della morra (boss of the morra) in the Naples Settecentesca It was the name of the guappo (chapter, head, head) of neighborhood that solved the disputes between the Morra players (typical street game), in any case this etymology, like some others, also seems to go back to the word Neapolitan morrawith the meaning of gambling and/or gang/riña.

By extension, the term camorrista has come to be synonymous with a bully or bully, with chimerista, and it is thus that in Spanish "camorra" means fight, fight.

History and structure

Camorristi (camorrists) in Naples, in 1906.

There are several hypotheses about the origin of the Camorra. According to one theory, the secret society that later led to the birth of the criminal organization appeared under the name of Gamurra in the city of Cagliari, in Sardinia, in the XIII, later spreading to Naples. However, the most accredited hypothesis places the emergence of the organization in Campania around the XVI or XVII.

There is also speculation that its formation dates back to the XVIII century and was due to a lack of interest of the Neapolitan Bourbon monarchy in the creation of a functional police state, leaving the administration of justice and internal security in the hands of local bosses and thugs. The Spanish term camorra (quarrel, ruckus, mess) probably originated from this Neapolitan context.

Contrary to the Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra has been (except sporadic cases) away from politics and the armed forces; Only with Fernando IV and Francisco II of the Two Sicilies did he make a timid attempt to collaborate, but in the long run it did not report benefits for either party. Although the term has been used to refer to the underworld as an organized crime that developed in Naples during the XIX century and known as the Bella Società Riformata ("Beautiful Reformed Society"), the Camorra is frequently assumed to be an illicit association or a criminal organization similar to the leadership of Cosa Nostra or other similar-looking criminal associations. Specifically, the structure of the Camorra is much more complex and fragmentary in that it is made up of many "families" diverse among them in territorial influence, organizational structure, financial power and modus operandi. Due to this relative lack of hierarchy at the highest echelons, clashes between the 182 clans estimated to be criminal in the province of Naples are common. Furthermore, alliances between these organizations may be simple non-belligerence or non-belligerence agreements. competition between the numerous clans operating over a certain territory, "pacts" which are usually fragile and can lead to true "faide" or "Camorra wars", with attacks and homicides.

Its members, called camorristi, were involved in smuggling, blackmail, bribery, robbery, and murder. They looted and terrorized the Italian country for many years. After centuries of evolution, they came to light around 1830. The Camorra prospered during the riots that occurred in Italy in the struggle for unification. The organization would have conveniently allied with the forces of Italian nationalism against the country's Bourbon might. In the period following the unification of Italy (1870), there was a brief and unsuccessful attempt to employ the camorristi in the police force. The Camorra continued to spread fear across the nation and virtually ruled the city of Naples by the turn of the 20th century.

The process of Viterbo to the Camorra, 1911-1912.

Its power was greatly weakened when its members were accused of murder and put on trial in 1911. This association was eliminated in 1922 by the fascist government of Benito Mussolini. However, criminal gangs similar to the Camorra continued to operate in Naples and, in the 1970s and 1990s, there were attempts to hierarchize the Camorra, in the style of Cosa Nostra. Its promoter, Raffaele Cutolo, then founded the Nuova Camorra Organizzata , which was confronted by other families, hostile to the loss of autonomy, which became part of the Nuova Famiglia . The war between the two came to leave 264 dead in 1982, many of them innocent. The confrontation ended with the victory of the NF, dissolved shortly after: since 1984, the confessions of some "repentant" rowdy leaders have led to the dismantling of part of the infrastructure that they had redeveloped since the 1960s. Another attempt at centralization occurred in 1992, but it was also unsuccessful due to the lack of interest shown by the clans in giving up part of their power.

At the beginning of the XXI century, the Camorra was characterized by its high fragmentation, which led to numerous clashes between the families for the succession in their commands and the conquest of areas of influence. 2004 was the most virulent year, with 139 deaths in the "Scampia war", a neighborhood that at that time was considered the "drug hypermarket" most important in Europe (sad record that currently belongs to the Rogoredo neighborhood of Milan).

The Neapolitan Camorra spread to the United States with the criminal activities of Al Capone in that country; However, the only relationship he had with the mafia was his status as Italian-American, since the Camorra does not operate as a pyramidal organization and respects the hierarchies within the families among themselves. The Camorra, like all other mafias, tends to have illegal businesses (more or less 80% of their total businesses: drug trafficking, prostitution, extortion in exchange for money, etc.) but also legal (such as casinos, for example). example).

The term camorra sometimes indicates a type of mentality that makes arrogance and omertà (a pact of concealment, of "silence") diffuse one of its main strengths. The limit between belonging to a clan or a rowdy or rowdy criminal gang is living in a diffuse rowdy mentality; In some areas, a clear division between the criminal and the legal may then be difficult to detect.

List of homicides in which the Camorra has participated

• Acerra
• Afragola (1999 and 2005)
• Boscoreale
• Brusciano
• Casandrino (1991)
• Casapesenna
• Casola di Napoli
• Casoria (1999 and 2005)
• Casal di Principe
• Casamarciano
• Crispano
• Ercolano
• Frattamaggiore
• Grazzanise
• Lauro
• Liveri
• Marano di Napoli
• Melito
• Nola
• Ottaviano
• Pignataro Maggiore
• Pimonte
• Poggiomarino
• Pomigliano d'Arco
• Pompei
• Portici
• Pozzuoli
• Quarto
• Quindici
• San Gennaro Vesuviano
• San Giuseppe Vesuviano
• Sant'Antimo
• Sant'Antonio Abate
• Santa Maria la Carità
• Terzigno
• Tower Annunziata
• Torre del Greco
• Tufino
• Villa di Briano
• Volla

The Camorra in Spain

According to journalist Roberto Saviano, Spain, after Italy, is the country most intertwined with the Camorra. It is where the Camorra clans established their massive businesses that revolve around drug trafficking and money laundering in real estate.

The Camorra has been in Spain since the 1980s. The most powerful clan operating in the country is the Polverino clan, due to the number of people they have installed and the potential of their structure. They have influence in the cities of Alicante, Tarragona, Málaga and Cádiz.

According to a mapping by the Spanish authorities, the Gionta clan, the Secondigliano Alliance and the Caiazzo clan are present in Madrid. In Marbella, Fuengirola, Zaragoza and Ceuta, the Mazzarella clan and the 'Scissionisti di Secondigliano' are present. In Barcelona, the Licciardi, Friziero and Contini clans and, in Malaga, the Zazo clan.

According to a 2019 Spanish television documentary, Barcelona is the nerve center of the organization outside of Italy, exposing the Camorra's endless business in Catalonia, from massive drug trafficking to laundering vast amounts of money in restaurants, clubs and hotels in the region. The documentary also presents an interview with Maurizio Prestieri, a former member of the Di Lauro clan arrested in Marbella in 2003 and now a collaborator with the Police as an informant, who explained why Spain is the preferred place for the Camorra to launder money, traffic and take refuge.

On November 20, 2019, Italian police, with the cooperation of Spanish police, arrested two members of the Polverino clan, who belonged to a major transnational organizational structure, created by the Polverinos, based in Valencia and Naples, which between 2001 and 2012 had imported hashish from Morocco through Spain to reach the Campania region.

In a June 2020 report by the British newspaper The Sun on criminal groups operating in the Costa del Sol region, Dutch author and journalist Ivo Teulings says that a large percentage of bars, restaurants, nightclubs and brothels in the region are in the hands of the Camorra, and according to the journalist, the organization is considered the "Invisible top dogs" in the criminal world of the Costa del Sol.

Links to South American drug cartels

Links between South American drug cartels and Camorra clans date back at least to the 1980s, having stabilized numerous prime drug channels from South America to Europe over the years.

In the 1980s, Umberto Ammaturo, a Camorra affiliate, established a monopoly on cocaine trafficking to Italy from Peru, where he benefited from the protection and collusion of high-profile personalities. According to the DEA, due to his trafficking activities, Ammaturo was one of the main financiers of the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso in Peru.

Mazzarella clan member Salvatore Zazo was allegedly involved in a large international cocaine trafficking scheme from Peru to Europe, with the intention of acquiring full control of the Port of Callao; One of his contacts was Gerald Oropeza, one of Peru's top drug traffickers.According to the DEA, Zazo would manage more than $500 million per year in cocaine shipments through the country's ports to Europe.

According to investigations, Camorra member Tommaso Iacomino usually negotiated with the heads of the Peruvian and Colombian drug cartels about shipping large amounts of drugs.

Giuseppe Gallo, called 'o pazz (the crazy one), head of the Limelli-Vangone clan, is said to have contacts with Colombian drug traffickers capable of reaching agreements for the purchase of large quantities of cocaine, supplying several clans in the Naples area.

On July 4, 2019, the Guardia di Finanza seized 538 kg of cocaine, worth €200 million, destined for the Camorra in the port of Genoa. According to reports, the drug was found in 19 bags inside a container that arrived from Colombia. In each of the bags was a counterfeit €500 note, a symbol known to be that of a new Colombian cartel born from the merger of several other cartels. The container was headed for Naples but was intercepted in the port of Genoa.

On December 18, 2019, Italian police arrested 12 people, including members of an international drug cartel that trafficked drugs between Colombia and Italy. According to investigations, the cocaine brought from Colombia was pure and of high quality, and when it arrived in Italy, it was sold at a "retail" at €200 per gram, the entire scheme was run by members of the Camorra. Among those arrested in the operation was Salvatore Nurcaro, a well-known member of the Rinaldi clan.

In cinema and literature

• Camorra is also a 1972 film, directed by Pasquale Squitieri and starring Fabio Testi and Jean Seberg.
• The teacher is another 1986 film, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, which tells the story of Raffaele Cutolo, boss of the 1970s and '80s.
• In the famous Gomorraof 2008, Matteo Garrone put in film the best seller Gomorra by Roberto Saviano.
• Gomorra - The series is an Italian television series based on the novel "Gomorra", premiered on May 6, 2014. HBO Latin America Group purchased emission rights for Latin America. In Spain they were acquired by Atresmedia, which issued it in star hours through La Sexta.