[3] In the 1970s, the organization was already dubbed by the media as the kings of cigarette smuggling, however, during the eighties and nineties the organization ended up involved in many Camorra wars, in particular against the Contini clan, which led to the death of dozens of affiliates including the father of the Mazzarella brothers, Francesco, killed in an ambush in 1998, with an increase in February of the same year which led to ten deaths in nine days.
[10] Born in Naples on April 2, 1940, Ciro Mazzarella aka 'o Scellone, was considered the true heir of Michele Zaza, having strong relations with the Sicilian Mafia, in particular with the Catania's Clans.
According to justice collaborators, the late boss of the Catanian Mafia, Giuseppe Calderone was the godparent in the baptism of one of the Mazzarella's sons.
[11] In the early 1990s Mazzarella had amassed great wealth,[12] in 1992 he decided to move to Switzerland, after losing a war between Camorra clans in Naples.
[19] Operating from Barcelona, Salvatore Zazo, one of the top members of the clan, was allegedly involved in a large scheme of international cocaine trafficking from Peru to Europe, with the intention to acquire total control of the Port of Callao; one of his contacts was the drug lord Gerald Oropeza, one of the biggest traffickers in Peru.
[23] According to the reports of the DIA about the Camorra in 2019, the Mazzarella clan, despite the death of two of its founders,[24] is still one of the most powerful organizations in Campania, dominating the territory in various neighbourhoods, and having numerous groups under their influence.