Giovanni Melluso

[2] He is particularly infamous for the frame-up of the popular Italian talk show host, Enzo Tortora, whom he falsely accused of cocaine trafficking and NCO membership.

Melluso was known by his multiple nicknames, "Gianni il Bello", or "Cha-cha-cha", both of which meant "beautiful" (the latter expression having that meaning in the Italian slang of the time).

During this period, he also adopted numerous false identities including Michele Tiano, Sante Breguglio, Mario Dalleri, Giuseppe Montalbano, Vincenzo Campo, and Paolo Belvisi.

On March 2, 1984, when the preliminary hearings of the trial against the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO) were already in motion, he asked to be transferred from his prison cell to the Carabinieri barracks.

There, he declared to an investigating magistrate of his decision to change his life because he was tired of the prison conditions and also because one of his former associates, Andrea Villa, had already decided to collaborate and had involved Melluso in his testimony.

However, Melluso's repentance had some value for the Justice Department because it need some evidence to back its prosecutions of NCO's connections in the show business industry in Northern Italy.

In court, Melluso proved to be a skillful performer, able to answer on cue, fend off attacks from the defense, and to animate his accounts with precise details and colourful anecdotes.

[1] In 1983, the Justice Department had arrested some well-respected members of the Italian show business industry who had been above suspicion, thus attracting much needed public attention to the work of law-enforcement agencies in cracking down on Organized Crime.

This move was inspired by the Justice department's perception that a drive against Organized Crime could only be successful if public opinion was focused on it, and therefore strove very hard to find any incriminating evidence against people able to attract media attention.

[1] Giovanni Melluso was the chief witness against Enzo Tortora, perhaps Italy's most famous talk show host, who was falsely accused of receiving and selling over ten kilograms of cocaine on different occasions by people affiliated with the NCO.

Later, towards the end of the same year, Melluso went to the office of an attorney, Cacciola, where he supposedly met Tortora and two other persons, whom he later identified as Roberto Calvi and Francesco Pazienza.

Melluso had made accusations against these people that were remarkably similar to those concerning Tortora: purchase and sale of considerable quantities of cocaine, giving a detailed account of the encounters with the two actors.

Another pentito, Guido Catapano, wrote to Tortora in prison that he had shared the cell with Melluso for six months in the Campobasso penitentiary, and was well aware that the accusations made against him were slanders.