Formation The founder of this organization, Raffaele Cutolo, also known as ''"'o Professore"'' (The Professor), was born on 20 December 1941 in
Ottaviano, a village in the hinterland of
Naples. At the age of 18, on 24 February 1963, he committed his first homicide and was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, reduced to 24 years after appeal. He was sent to
Poggioreale, Naples' prison. Entering the prison world on a murder conviction made Cutolo a "tough guy". Cutolo had established himself as a ringleader, when Antonio Spavone aka ''"'o Malommo"
(The Badman), was transferred to the Poggioreale prison. He challenged Spavone to a knife fight in the courtyard (a practise called 'o dichiaramento'', the declaration), but Spavone refused. The challenged boss allegedly limited himself to a reply: "Today's young men want to die young by whatever means." Spavone was released from prison shortly after this event. From his prison cell, Cutolo ordered the murder of Spavone. A hitman, allegedly Cutolo's friend, shot him in the face from short range with a shotgun. Spavone survived the ambush, but the shotgun blast left considerable damage to his facial structure, which required
plastic surgery. Spavone immediately resigned from his highly visible role as a Camorra boss. 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. The organisation was unique in the history of the Camorra in that it was highly centralised and possessed a rudimentary form of ideology. For example, he publicly declared that children were not to be kidnapped or mistreated and allegedly arranged the assassination of at least one kidnapper. Perhaps the most potent ideological weapon was the cult of violence, which sometimes bordered on a kind of death wish, as Cutolo once wrote: "the value of a life doesn’t consist of its length but in the use made of it; often people live a long time without living very much. Consider this, my friends, as long as you are on this earth everything depends on your will-power, not on the number of years you have lived." Cutolo openly supported the young inmates, who were confronted with abuse, brutality, physical aggression and rape. He provided them with advice and protection from the brutalities of other inmates. At the same time they learned how to behave as a good
picciotto, the lowest entry level into the Camorra. Cutolo challenged the old Camorra bosses and gave the youngsters a structure to belong to: "The new Camorra must have a statute, a structure, an oath, a complete ceremony, a ritual that must excite people to the point that they would risk their lives for this organization." Cutolo spent a great amount of time researching the 19th century Camorra and reconstructed the old Camorristic ritual of initiation. He took great care in making the ritual a binding social practise. In his cell, he created a ceremony in which the initiate received the award of the
primo regalo (first gift) also called
abbraccio (embrace) or
fiore (flower). He infused the old Camorristic traditions with Catholicism and reconstituted the ritual of initiation of the traditional Camorra. The NCO has often been described as the
"expression of a kind of collective mass movement of the violent and disbanded youth of Campania". When the journalist Giorgio Rossi interviewed some of the young NCO members from Ottaviano, he recorded several testimonies of how willing were they to die for their boss and organization. One young picciotto said: "You ask me why I do what I do. The answer is simple. I don't care if I die or live. Actually in a way I'm looking for my death." A second picciotto said, "We are running towards our death. There is no purpose to living here. This is a bad life. Life here counts zero. What I have seen in these 23 years is enough and I'm already dead. Now I'm living on borrowed time. If they want to kill me, fine, what I have seen is enough." Similarly, a third one said, "We are in such a state that if they try to step on us, we will kill. We are the living dead. I have already half a foot stepping on my head. If you step on me with the other half, I'll kill you."
Acquiring and consolidating power The NCO spread in the crisis-ridden Campanian towns of the late 1970s, offering alienated youths an alternative to a lifetime of unemployment or poorly paid jobs. Hundreds of young men were employed as enforcers. Initially, the main specialisation of NCO gangs was extorting money through protection rackets from local businesses. The police calculated that the NCO had some 7000 armed associates in 1980. 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. In its quest for cash, it even targeted individuals such as landlords, lawyers and professionals. The NCO's protection racket even included a transient circus. He also embarked on a ruthless campaign against the Sicilian Mafiosi operating in Campania. The years of the NCO's domination (1979–1983) saw the highest number of homicides, of which there were 900 in Campania alone.
Move into Apulia Raffaele Cutolo decided to expand the NCO to the neighboring region of
Apulia in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This was precipitated by a number of factors. Firstly, a number of Camorristi had been incarcerated or forced to resettle in Apulia. In the 1970s, a large number of NCO members had been relocated from their prisons in Campania to the local Pugliese prisons resulting in massive
prison overcrowding. Furthermore, by the early 1980s a new smuggling route from
Yugoslavia had been opened, and Apulia became a crucial juncture of this trade. The absence of any local criminal association made Apulia a natural place for border crossings by Camorra clans who had the opportunity to exploit a particularly lucrative market there, free from any threatening local competition. Initially, there were no problems between the native criminals and the NCO. Their working relationship continued for years with no undue interference. At first local criminals were managing the illegal trades while the NCO lent financial resources and support demanding 40% of all profits derived from illegal activities. 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. The Sacra Corona Unita received its legitimacy from Rogoli's induction into the 'Ndrangheta by the Calabrian 'Ndranghetisti, Carmine Alvaro and Umberto Bellocco, who were incarcerated with him in
Porto Azzurro. The breaking point was reached when the NCO tried to move into the Giuliano's stronghold of Forcella, Piazza Mercato and Via Duomo, in the centre of Naples. A few days before
Christmas, 1980, two NCO members presented themselves at an unloading of contraband cigarettes at Santa Lucia and demanded immediate payment of $400,000 to their organization, as well as insisting on future payment of $25 for every crate of cigarettes brought ashore. They then proceeded to shoot and injure one of the Giuliano gang members unloading the cigarettes. On Christmas Eve, the gang's leader, Luigi Giuliano, was also wounded in an attack. The attacks continued through January 1981, until a summit meeting was called at the end of the month in a Roman hotel, under the mediation of Antonio Spavone. It was attended by the NF leaders and the NCO was represented by Rosetta Cutolo and Vincenzo Casillo. Representatives from the Sicilian Mafia were also present in the meeting. From 1980 to 1983, a bloody war raged in and around Naples, which left several hundred dead and severely weakened the NCO. 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. The war soon became a straightforward battle for power which was fueled by the billions pouring in from Rome for earthquake reconstruction. For instance, the highest number of deaths occurred in the 1981–82 period, when most of the reconstruction contracts were being assigned. The number of gangland murders soon grew to epic proportions. During this period, some Neapolitans would place illegal and macabre bets, in a system controlled by the Camorra itself, on whether there would be more gangland murders than days over the coming year. Between 16 and 19 June 1983, police arrested a thousand members of the NCO. The earthquake had a major impact on the criminal underworld. A lot of people lost their businesses and were left unemployed and destitute. Without any place to work at, these displaced persons particularly the young men, turned to the NF and NCO for work. During this time, the NCO was getting richer by infiltrating the network of earthquake relief agencies. It hoarded enormous quantities of relief funds and goods, and charged fees for protecting all businesses involved in earthquake re-construction. This savage war caused in turn a greater attention from the Italian police organizations, pushing the Sicilian Mafia to accommodate an agreement between the two warring clans, favouring the Nuova Famiglia, which included a lot of former allies. Many high-ranking Sicilian mafiosi such as
Leoluca Bagarella,
Bernardo Provenzano and
Totò Riina repeatedly tried to eliminate Cutolo. The war left Cutolo more exposed in terms of notoriety. He had not expected such a strong backlash from his adversaries, and his strong hostility to the Sicilian Mafia gave them another tactical advantage, in that they were able to obtain assistance from the Mafia.
Defeat of Cutolo In a one-year period between 1983 and 1984, there were a series of arrests and massive crackdowns coordinated by Italian justice on the activities and rackets operated by the NCO. In the first round-up on 17 June 1983 (a day labeled as "the Black Friday of the NCO" by the Neapolitan press), 856 people were arrested on a single day of coordinated operations involving 8,000 police and
carabinieri. Of those arrested in a series of raids, 300 were convicted very quickly and another 630 committed for trial. Overall more than a thousand would later be indicted on the crime of association with the NCO. The resulting
Maxi Trial lasted three years and required the participation of nine different judges and scores of legal clerks, attorneys, witnesses, and military policemen. The legal records which included audiotapes of the entire proceedings filled an entire room at Naples' hall of justice. 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. He was then followed by
Giovanni Pandico, one of the NCO's underwriter's whose accusations led to many arrests in the 1983 police crackdown. However, many of his accusations were later proven to be unfounded. The third major NCO supergrass was
Mario Incarnato, who confessed to a series of murders in late 1983. In the mid-1980s,
Giovanni Auriemma exposed the NCO's links with the secret services, whilst
Pasquale D'Amico revealed Cutolo's links with the Calabrian
'Ndrangheta. Organized crime author Tom Behan illustrates the key factors leading to Cutolo's defeat and the downfall of the NCO: • Firstly, he cites Cutolo's arrogance and impatience which caused the formation of the NF. He further states that had Cutolo moved at a slower pace and sought greater consensus, he might have succeeded in becoming the undisputed boss of the region of Naples. • Secondly, he cites the youth and the rawness of many of the NCO's "foot soldiers" compared with the more experienced members of the NF gangs. NCO members had a tendency of killing fellow members on mere suspicion of treachery; thus further reducing their numbers. As one pentito recalled; "The cutoliani committed arrogant acts, killing people for no reason." • Thirdly, he mentions that Cutolo had committed a strategic error in concentrating on labour-intensive activities such as protection rackets and avoiding the more lucrative heroin trafficking rackets almost entirely. 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. The NF, under Carmine Alfieri refused to act, preferring to having nothing to do with the whole affair because he didn't want to be used by the politicians. However, Cirillo's release, as a result of the negotiations by Cutolo and the NCO, raised the spectre for Alfieri and the NF that the NCO had reinforced their association with Gava and his faction by this action. 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. Both these last concessions were granted. 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. As a result, his former political protectors turned and provided their support to his main rival
Carmine Alfieri. Cutolo's influence was also reduced when at the insistence of President
Sandro Pertini, he was relocated to a prison on the island
Asinara in January 1982, far away from Naples and his ability to communicate with the outside was severely restricted when the harsh
41-bis prison regime was imposed upon him. The elimination of the key NCO figures not only marked the end of the NCO's defeat as a political and criminal force, but also the rise of Carmine Alfieri and the NF who, by now, virtually unopposed, replaced them as the main contact of the politicians and businessmen in Campania as well as other criminal organizations. These chain of killings, including that of Cutolo's son, Roberto Cutolo who was shot dead by members of the
Fabbrocino clan on 24 December 1990, aged 25, coupled with the incarceration of many of its members brought an end to the Nuova Camorra Organizzata. However, with Cutolo and the NCO out of the picture, the NF alliance soon disintegrated into many feuding clans, with a war breaking out between the Bardellino and Nuvoletta clans towards the end of 1983.
Death of Cutolo On 17 February 2021, Cutolo died in the prison unit of the Maggiore Hospital in
Parma, at the age of 79. The
Polizia di Stato prohibited public funerals. ==See also==