Michele Zaza (Italian pronunciation: [miˈkɛːle dˈdzaddza]; Procida, April 10, 1945 – Rome, July 18, 1994) was a member of the Camorra criminal organisation who was also initiated in the Sicilian Mafia.
[1] By 1974 there was evidence that he had risen in the criminal underworld when he was arrested with important Mafiosi like Gerlando Alberti, Stefano Bontade and Rosario Riccobono.
I’m proud of that - US$24 million!”[4] As the major Camorra cigarette smuggler of the 1970s and 1980s, Michele Zaza once said: “At least 700,000 people live off contraband, which is for Naples what Fiat is to Turin.
Instead, this city should thank the twenty, thirty men who arrange for ships laden with cigarettes to be discharged and thus stop crime!” (The Agnelli referred to is Gianni Agnelli, president of Fiat, the Turin-based car multinational)[5] The profit margins were lucrative: in 1959 a case of Chesterfield, Camel or Pall Mall was bought for US$23 and sold on the streets for US$170.
Naples had an ideal strategic position in the Mediterranean and easy access to the Yugoslavian and Albanian coastlines, and took over as the major transit point for smuggled goods.
Zaza became known as "the King of the blondes", as cigarettes are called in French and Italian slang, and ran a fully multinational operation together with his brother Salvatore.
[2] The two main tobacco multinationals, Philip Morris (Marlboro) and Reynolds (Camel and Winston), through concessionaires in Basel, Switzerland, supplied the merchandise without much questions asked.
Mafia supergrass Tommaso Buscetta remembered: “According to what Stefano Bontade told me, laughing, Michele Zaza used every trick in the book to unload his own cigarettes rather than those of the Palermo families.”[2] At the end of the 1970s two different types of Camorra organisations were beginning to take shape.
The NCO type gangs were mainly involved in cocaine dealing and protection rackets, preserving a strong regional sense of identity.
In contrast, the business-oriented gangs linked to the Mafia like Zaza's organisation, were involved in cigarette smuggling and heroin trafficking, but soon moved on to invest in real estate and construction firms, in particular when the reconstruction after the November 1980 Irpinia earthquake provided ample opportunity to rake off public contracts.
If other criminal groups wanted to keep their business, they were obliged to pay the NCO protection on their activities, including a percentage for each case of cigarettes smuggled into Naples.
[14] To oppose Cutolo and his NCO, Zaza formed a 'honourable brotherhood' (Onorata fratellanza) in 1978, in an attempt to get the Mafia-aligned Camorra gangs united, although initially without much success.
A year later, in 1979, the Nuova Famiglia was formed to contrast Cutolo's NCO, consisting of Zaza, the Nuvoletta's and Antonio Bardellino from Casal Di Principe (the Casalesi clan).
[13] Zaza's success was due to the fact that he was more involved in smuggling (first cigarettes and later drugs) and less interested in traditional Camorra extortion activities.
[15] In 1982, with the DEA on his tail, he allegedly was involved in importing 93 kg of heroin to his mansion in Beverly Hills in cooperation with Mafia boss Antonio Salamone.
After his release in Italy, Zaza moved his base of operations to the South of France to avoid harassment from Italian authorities (particularly new laws which allow the seizure of assets whose origin cannot be accounted for).
[2][21] As consequence on April 15, 1991, 200 members of Zaza's organization are investigated by Franco-Italian authorities by money laundering in the casino of Menton In July 1991, a French court sentenced him to 3 years for cigarette smuggling.
[22] In March 1993, police dismantled a Cosa Nostra-Camorra ring of 39 people involved in cocaine trafficking and money laundering in Italy, France and Germany (Operation Green Sea).