Episodes

  • 10 - The Camorra, Current Status.

    10 - The Camorra, Current Status.
    Feb 25 2026
    The Camorra, Current Status.
    With most of the old Camorra clans decapitated, and their bosses either dead or arrested, the organization is experiencing a rise in youth criminal gangs trying to take their places. This phenomenon is called Paranza, Camorra terminology for a criminal group led by youngsters or "small fish". Whilst the older bosses often operated out of the limelight, these young criminals broadcast their exploits on social media, posing in designer clothes and with €200 bottles of champagne.
    In 2015, 19 year-old Emanuele Sibillo, considered one of the first young and leading bosses of this new generation, was shot dead by a rival baby gang. Most of these young criminals are children of Camorra members that are currently in jail.
    According to Felia Allum, author of book The Invisible Camorra: Neapolitan Crime Families across Europe:
    We can clearly see the baby gangs are criminals, or people who want to have criminal careers. But there's a vacuum, because the traditional families have lost their leaders. In the centre of Naples the bosses are either in prison or they've become state witnesses, so there's this kind of space for younger kids to appear. They're 17 or 18 with criminal ambition, and they've got a sense of identity of what they want to do.


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    9 mins
  • 09 - The Camorra, Outside Italy, part 3.

    09 - The Camorra, Outside Italy, part 3.
    Feb 25 2026
    The Camorra, Outside Italy, part 3.
    Camorra-South American drug cartels.
    The links between the South American drug cartels and Camorra clans dates back to at least the 1980s, having stabilized numerous privileged drug channels from South America to Europe over the years.
    According to investigations, the Camorra member Tommaso Iacomino allegedly negotiated with the head of Peruvian and Colombian drug cartels over the cocaine trade.
    Giuseppe Gallo called 'o pazz (the crazy one), boss of the Limelli-Vangone clan, is said to having contacts with Colombian drug traffickers able to reach agreements for the purchase of large quantities of cocaine, supplying various clans in the Naples area.
    In 2016, Salvatore Iavarone, a broker in South America representing the Tamarisco clan from Torre Annunziata, was arrested in Ecuador. Iavarone is believed to be the main link for the shipment of narcotics from Ecuador to Europe. Other 28 members were arrested during this operation. The police also confiscated €11 million that belonged to Iavarone in Ecuador.
    On 4 July 2019, the Guardia di Finanza seized 538 kg of cocaine, worth €200 million, destined for the Camorra in the port of Genoa. According to the reports, the drug was found in 19 bags inside a container that arrived from Colombia. On each of the loaves was a fake €500 note, a symbol known to be that of a new Colombian cartel born of the merger of several other cartels. The container was headed to Naples but was intercepted at the port of Genoa.
    On 18 December 2019, the Italian police arrested 12 people, including members of an international drug cartel dedicated to the drug trafficking between Colombia and Italy. According to the investigations, the cocaine brought from Colombia was pure and of high quality, and when it arrived in Italy, it was sold at a "retail" price of 200 euros per gram, all the scheme was managed by Camorra members. Among those arrested in the operation was Salvatore Nurcaro, a well known member of the Rinaldi clan.


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    8 mins
  • 08 - The Camorra, Outside Italy, part 2.

    08 - The Camorra, Outside Italy, part 2.
    Feb 25 2026
    The Camorra, Outside Italy, part 2.
    Switzerland.
    The Camorra has had a presence in Switzerland for more than 50 years, undertaking money laundering but also arms trafficking and drug trafficking. The Casalesi clan is present throughout the country, and according to the investigations into the clan, it has numerous Swiss bank accounts.
    In 1992, Ciro Mazzarella, the late boss of the Mazzarella clan, decided to move to Switzerland, after losing a war between Camorra clans in Naples. From his logistics base in Lugano, he created an enviable economic empire with cigarette smuggling that arrived from Montenegro.
    In 2017, assets worth €20 million belonging to the Potenza brothers, who are considered to be linked to the Lo Russo clan, were seized in Lugano, including bank accounts in BSI.


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    9 mins
  • 07 - The Camorra, Outside Italy, part 1.

    07 - The Camorra, Outside Italy, part 1.
    Feb 25 2026
    The Camorra, Outside Italy, part 1.
    Despite its origins, it presently has secondary ramifications in other Italian regions, like Lazio, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont in connection with the centres of national economic power.
    From the 1980s onwards, with its massive involvement in drug trafficking, the Camorra expanded its operations to other countries, particularly Spain. The organization established strong ties with international drug cartels, notably in South America, and began to use Spain and other countries as a key transit point for smuggling cocaine and other illicit substances into Europe. This expansion allowed the Camorra to strengthen its control over the European drug trade while also diversifying its criminal activities across the continent. In addition to drug trafficking, the Camorra has been notorious for its sophisticated money laundering operations. It uses legitimate businesses, such as restaurants, hotels, construction companies, and financial institutions, to clean the proceeds from their illegal activities. This web of money laundering extends globally, with the organization using international banking systems and offshore accounts to conceal and legitimize their earnings.


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    10 mins
  • 06 - Efforts to fight the Camorra, part 2.

    06 - Efforts to fight the Camorra, part 2.
    Feb 25 2026
    Efforts to fight the Camorra, part 2.
    On 23 October 2019, the Italian police dismantled the Montescuro clan, arresting 23 important members of the organisation. The clan was headed by the elderly boss Carmine Montescuro, nicknamed 'Zì Menuzzo' , a leader of remarkable criminal charisma, who for at least 20 years played the role of mediator in the wars between various clans. According to the investigations, due to his mediation skills, he was able to put the Missos, the Mazzarellas and the Continis at the same table when the war between their organisations was at its peak in the early 2000s. Montescuro also had a good relationship with Marco Mariano, boss of the Mariano clan in the 1990s. Despite his advanced age, the Court of Naples authorized his arrest and transfer to prison; however, after less than two weeks, he was transferred from jail to house arrest for health reasons. Montescuro was also known for his passion for gambling, and was often in Monte Carlo, where he reportedly spent large amounts of money.
    In November 2019, Raffaele Romano, a prominent affiliate of the De Luca Bossa clan, decided to move to the side of the State, becoming a pentito.[91] According to reports, the De Luca Bossa clan, now the most powerful clan of Ponticelli and of much of the Vesuvian area, could soon crumble under the declarations of the new pentito.
    On 6 November 2019, the Carabinieri arrested Federico Rapprese, linked to the Rannucci clan and included in the list of the most dangerous fugitives. Rapprese was wanted since February 2018, accused of the attempted murder of Antonio Marrazzo, brother of the head of the Marazzo clan, happened in December 2006.


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    8 mins
  • 05 - Efforts to fight the Camorra, part 1.

    05 - Efforts to fight the Camorra, part 1.
    Feb 25 2026
    Efforts to fight the Camorra, part 1.
    The Camorra has proven to be an extremely difficult organisation to fight within Italy. During the 1911–12 trial, Fabroni gave testimony on how complicated it was to successfully prosecute the Camorra: "The Camorrist has no political ideals. He exploits the elections and the elected for gain. The leaders distribute bands throughout the town, and they have recoursed to violence to obtain the vote of the electors for the candidates whom they have determined to support. Those who refuse to vote as instructed are beaten, slashed with knives, or kidnapped. All this is done with assurance of impunity, as the Camorrists will have the protection of successful politicians, who realize that they cannot be chosen to office without paying toll to the Camorra."
    Unlike the Sicilian Mafia, which has a clear hierarchy and a division of interests, the Camorra's activities are much less centralised. This makes the organisation much more difficult to combat through crude repression. In Campania, where unemployment is high and opportunities are limited, the Camorra has become an integral part of the fabric of society. It offers a sense of community and provides the youth with jobs. Members are guided in the pursuit of criminal activities, including cigarette smuggling, drug trafficking, and theft.
    The government has made an effort to combat the Camorra's criminal activities in Campania. The solution ultimately lies in Italy's ability to offer values, education and work opportunities to the next generation. However, the government has been hard pressed to find funds for promoting long-term reforms that are needed to improve the local economic outlook and create jobs. Instead, it has had to rely on limited law enforcement activity in an environment that has a long history of tolerance and acceptance of criminality and is governed by the omertà.


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    10 mins
  • 04 - The Camorra, Activities.

    04 - The Camorra, Activities.
    Feb 24 2026
    The Camorra, Activities.
    Compared to the Sicilian Mafia's pyramidal structure, the Camorra has more of a 'horizontal' structure. As a result, Camorra clans act independently of one another and are more prone to feuding. This, however, makes the Camorra more resilient when top leaders are arrested or killed, as new clans and organisations emerge from the remnants of old ones. Clan leader Pasquale Galasso stated in court, "Campania can get worse because you could cut into a Camorra group, but another ten could emerge from it."
    In the 1970s and 1980s, Raffaele Cutolo made an unsuccessful attempt to unify the Camorra families in the manner of the Sicilian Mafia, by forming the New Organized Camorra (Nuova Camorra Organizzata or NCO). Drive-by shootings by camorristi often result in casualties among the local population but such episodes are often difficult to investigate because of the widespread practise of omertà (code of silence). According to a report published in 2007 by Confesercenti, the second-largest Italian trade organisation, the Camorra control the milk and fish industries, the coffee trade, and over 2,500 bakeries in Naples.
    In 1983, Italian law enforcement estimated that there were about a dozen Camorra clans. By 1987, the estimate had risen to 26, and in the following year to 32. Roberto Saviano, an investigative journalist and author of Gomorra, an exposé of the activities of the Camorra, says that this sprawling network of clans now dwarfs the Sicilian Mafia, the 'Ndrangheta and southern Italy's other organised gangs, in numbers, in economic power and in ruthless violence.


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    5 mins
  • 03 - The Camorra, History.

    03 - The Camorra, History.
    Feb 24 2026
    The Camorra, History.
    The most accepted hypothesis is that the term "Camorra" was born directly in Campania, around the 16th-17th century, finding its original etymological root in the same expression in Neapolitan and being formed from the junction of the words c' 'a-morra (with the morra), in reference to the homonymous street game. The first official use of camorra as a word dates from 1735, when a royal decree authorised the establishment of eight gambling houses in Naples. By virtue of the historical information confirmed, it is widely agreed that the birth of the Neapolitan Camorra, intended as a secret criminal organization, in the form in which it is known today, was created around the 18th century.
    The ancestors of the Camorra existed in Campania, in particular in Naples, in the centuries preceding it and were called "compagniani" who moved in groups of four and lived off prostitutes, controlling gambling and committing robberies. In every Neapolitan neighborhood there was a group of compagniani of which some nobleman was also a member. Their meeting place was the "del Crispano" tavern, near the current Napoli Centrale station. Even the canon Giulio Genoino, the inspirer of Masaniello's revolt, was protected by compagniani. There were also the "cappiatori", street thieves, and the "campeatori", robbers with knives. At the end of the 17th century in Naples there were 1338 hanged, 17 executed leaders, 57 beheaded, 913 condemned to prison. During those centuries, some of the most famous "compagniani" were Fucillo Micone in the 16th century and Cesare Riccardi, called "abate Cesare", in the 17th century, both heads of groups of compagniani.


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    10 mins