Nuova Camorra Organizzata
[3] It was distinctly hostile to the Sicilian Mafia, but had an alliance with numerous Calabrian 'Ndrangheta clans, in addition to the Nuova Grande Camorra Pugliese, which was the precursor to the Sacra Corona Unita in Apulia.
He began by befriending young inmates unfamiliar with jail, giving them a sense of identity and worth, so much so that when they were released they would send Cutolo "flowers" (i.e. money), which enabled him to increase his network.
To retain his leadership, Cutolo needed to relay his orders to NCO members outside in an effective and reliable way, while simultaneously insuring that some of the profits generated by the expansion be delivered to prisons so that he could expand his recruitment drive.
The NCO became the organizing principle of a new kinship system based on Comparaggio, first cousins and allied kin, which was formally written into the municipal registry by obliging local bureaucrats.
He founded the NCO in his home town Ottaviano on 24 October 1970, the day of Cutolo's patron saint, San Raffaele, and the organization used a statute of rules and regulations that were deliberately meant to have a striking resemblance to the Camorra of the last century.
"[2][3] It was this approach that made the NCO openly hostile to the Sicilian Mafia and other Camorra clans, and Cutolo consequently developed a long-standing alliance with the 'Ndrangheta, who had no intentions or designs in either Naples or Campania.
[8] The NCO also established strong ties with the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita and the Roman Banda della Magliana, two other criminal organizations that did not directly operate in Campania.
"[7] In a letter found by the local police, a young picciotto named Turisio Agrippino wrote to Salvatore Federico: "The true god is our beloved Raffaele Cutolo."
Cutolo thanked him by having one of his men, Marco Medda, write him a letter which was later seized by the police: "My dear Giarrone, your interview greatly flattered the professor; he is honored, in case of need, to accept the blood that from your noble vein will flow into his own.
[3] The NCO spread like wildfire in the crisis-ridden Campanian towns of the late 1970s, offering alienated youths an alternative to a lifetime of unemployment or poorly paid jobs.
While the traditional Camorristic families held territorial powers and the consequent responsibility over their controlled areas, the NCO had no qualms over breaking the established social fabric by extorting shopkeepers, small factories and businesses, and building contractors.
[1] At the end of the 1970s, two types of Camorra gangs began to take shape: the NCO type gangs led by Cutolo, which dealt mainly in Cocaine and protection rackets, preserving a strong regional sense of identity, and the business oriented clans allied with the Mafia which were led by the likes of Michele Zaza, Carmine Alfieri, Lorenzo Nuvoletta, etc., who dealt in cigarettes and heroin, but soon moved on to invest in real estate and construction firms.
Unlike the traditional Camorra clans which used slow and static methods of conducting their business, the gangs grouped inside the NCO displayed an open-ended dynamic force that depended on speed and movement.
They usually came into the city from elsewhere, from the undifferentiated territories of the countryside; their men spread out across open space, relying on fast cars, motorcycles and mobile firepower instead of fortified positions.
For instance, Michele Zaza, the biggest Neapolitan cigarette smuggler, was reported to have paid the NCO more than 4 billion lire in the first three months after the imposition of the racket.
[15] Apulia's geographical features were of great interest for possible exploitation of its strategic potential, since it had a particularly extensive coastal area, a territory which was conveniently linked to the main motorways of Central-Northern Italy, and several mid sized airports.
The local criminals were involved only during particularly difficult operations, and then contacts were established directly with single individuals or small groups active for some time in smuggling which for strategic reasons was concentrated mainly in the Brindisi area.
[17] On 1 May 1983, with the sponsorship of the 'Ndrangheta capobastone, Giuseppe Rogoli founded the Sacra Corona Unita in Bari prison, a new Mafia invoking the regional Pugliese identity against the intrusion of the foreign Neapolitans.
[18] The clash, which had occurred in a period of growing tension, led to the formation of the Nuova Famiglia (NF) to contrast Cutolo's predominant NCO, consisting of Zaza, the Nuvoletta's and Antonio Bardellino from Casal Di Principe (the so-called "Casalesi").
[18] A shaky peace was established, only to be broken on 14 February when, during the confusion provoked by a strong earth tremor, NCO members in Naples' Poggioreale prison killed three adversaries.
It had its root causes in two main events: the rapid growth of two distinct types of Camorra gangs and the profound political and financial instability created by the November 1980 earthquake.
In an act reminiscent of both Italian neo-fascist and left-wing terrorist groups, they sent messages to the press signed, "Nuclei Armati Anti-Cutoliani" (Armed Nucleus Anti-Cutolo) or "Giustizieri Campani" (Avengers from Campania) complete with their new slogans "Let's slay the coto-lette (literally porkchops, a pun on Cutolo's name)" and "Fight back".
[25] There was also a steady stream of pentiti or supergrasses during this period, beginning with Pasquale Barra, who realizing that Cutolo was prepared to let him be killed, decided to reveal details of NCO murders in order to gain greater protection.
On 27 April 1981, the Red Brigades kidnapped the 60-year-old Christian Democrat (DC) politician Ciro Cirillo and killed his two-man escort in the garage of his Naples apartment building.
[27] During the period in which Cirillo was missing, DC politician, Antonio Gava and his party associates contacted both the NCO and the NF with the view to them using their good standing with the Red Brigades to secure his release.
[5] In return for negotiating the release of Cirillo, Cutolo allegedly asked for a slackening of police operations against the Camorra, for control over the tendering of building contracts in Campania (a lucrative venture since the devastating earthquake in November 1980) and for a reduction of his own sentence – as well as new psychiatric test to show that he is not responsible for his actions.
[28] Later, Cutolo began to blackmail Gava, demanding that he respect the deal made and threatening, in the event of non compliance, to create a public scandal by revelations that would have devastated the state institutions (i.e., The Secret Service) which had plotted with him to secure the hostage's release.
[5] Pasquale Galasso, the Nuova Famiglia leader who later became a pentito, briefly elaborated the post-kidnapping tension that existed between the DC and NCO, while testifying in court: The Gavas were feeling the pressure of Raffaele Cutolo's demands as he expected the agreement to be kept and he threatened to unleash a scandal that would have involved the institutional apparatus that had conspired with him for the liberation of Cirillo.
When his deputy and main 'military' chief, Vincenzo Casillo was killed via car bomb in January 1983 by Alfieri's ally, Pasquale Galasso, it was clear that Raffaele Cutolo had lost the war.
Nicola Nuzzo, a key NCO member involved in the negotiations was battered to death in the ward of a Roman hospital in 1986, soon after a meeting with an investigating magistrate, Carlo Alemi.
