10 Things You Didn't Know About the Camorra

Louis Ferrante: TV host, best-selling author, lecturer, former gangster.

In preparation for Cosa Nostra News correspondent Charley DeLucca's upcoming review of the debut episode of Lou Ferrante's new television series, Inside the Gangsters' Code, which focused on the Camorra, we thought we'd provide you with some insight into this particular group that makes up Italy's three Mafias (well, four maybe).

1: The Camorra is one of Italy’s oldest criminal organizations, dating back at least to the 18th century. (Ed. Note. The original Camorra was the oldest, but the group dissipated and reformed following WWII.)

2: The name Camorra comes probably comes from a combination of “capo” (boss) and “morra” (an old Neapolitan street gambling game). Control of gambling houses may have been the gang’s first business.


3: Drug addicts from all over Europe flock to Naples’ Secondigliano district, the center of the Camorra’s criminal drug operation that nets the gang over 100 million euros per year.



4: Between 2004 and 2007, Naples witnessed over 200 street killings during a war between rival Camorra clans fighting over control of the drug trade.

5: With the growth of the drug trade and other lucrative criminal activities in the Naples area, the Camorra is now estimated to have four times as many members as the Sicilian Mafia.

6: In the last three decades the Camorra has killed over a hundred and sixty innocent bystanders caught in gun battles between rival gang elements.

7: Weapons’ trafficking, drugs and extortion are money-makers for the Camorra. Strong evidence exists that the gang even does business with Middle Eastern terrorists.

8: Like the New York City mafia in decades past, the Camorra has controlled the garbage industry in Naples since the 1990’s turning the city into a health and environmental catastrophe.

9: The Camorra costs the Italian government over 200 million euros a year in lost revenues through criminal activities in the port of Naples.

10: Recently, the Naples police investigated the businesses in their city and found that 50% of them owe their allegiance to the Camorra or are somehow paying them.

DiscoveryUK.com

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