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The next generation of Italian mobsters are infuriating Mafia bosses by flaunting their flashy lifestyles on TikTok. Gangsters in Naples are using the social media platform to post videos which show them driving expensive cars, partying at popular clubs and swigging bottles of champagne. Crescenzo Marino, the son of a Camorra boss, has more than 43,000 followers and nearly 900,000 likes. The Camorra is based in Campania, centred around Naples, and is the oldest and largest criminal organisation in Italy. Marino's TikTok account includes clips of him wearing elaborate designer clothing and watches, cruising around Paris in a Ferrari, playing...

EX-beauty queen Assunta Maresca, who became the first female boss of the dreaded Camorra gang after killing her rival, has died at the age of 86. The feared mob boss, dubbed Pupetta, or "Little Doll" in English, died at her home in Castellamare di Stabia, near Pompeii, following an illness. The heartless mafia icon rose to prominence when she shot dead her husband's killer in Naples at the age of 18 and went on to become the first female boss of the bloody Camorra clan. Maresca - the daughter of a notorious black marketeer - hunted down Antontio Esposito, the...

There is a risk of mafia interference in Italy’s upcoming general election, some of the country’s top politicians warned on Wednesday. Interior Minister Marco Minniti said it was a “fact” that there was “a concrete risk of the mafia conditioning the free vote”. “To say that the mafias are a threat to democracy does not seem irrational on the eve of an electoral competition,” Minniti said in a speech at the Italian Senate. He went on to say there had been “too much silence on these issues” in the election campaign so far, and that Italy faced a “double threat”...

The Italian government on Thursday dissolved four town councils due to evidence of mafia infiltration. The affected towns were Laureana di Borrello, Bova Marina, and Gioia Taura, all located in Reggio Calabria at the toe of Italy’s boot, as well as San Felice a Cancello in Caserta, Campania. […] Government-appointed commissions will take over council duties, the ministry said, and local elections scheduled for June 11th will no longer take place in two of the Sicilian towns. […] In 2016, the government disbanded the local council of Corleone because of suspected mafia infiltration of the Sicilian town which helped inspire...

By the time Aziz Ehsan, a 46-year-old Iraqi, was arrested near Naples on Tuesday, local anti-mafia police had already been trailing him for days to determine just why he was in the heartland of the Camorra crime syndicate’s territory. He was well known by both the French and Belgian secret services, which list him as a suspected ISIS contact. The Neapolitan cops were also aware of an international arrest warrant for him in Switzerland, where he was wanted in connection with a variety of offenses, including forgery, assault, and possession of illegal weapons. He was apparently just the type of...

ROME, - An Italian journalist and author known for exposing the Naples mafia was honored by having an asteroid named after him, officials said. Roberto Saviano had asteroid No. 278447 named after him Friday, Italy's ANSA news agency reported. Saviano was given the honor by the International Astronomical Union for exposing "the Camorra's organized-crime activities in his 2006 best-seller 'Gomorrah.'" Saviano received death threats for his novel and was placed under round-the-clock police protection after its publication. "Gomorrah" was later turned into a film and won second prize at Cannes and five European Film Awards in 2008. "Thank you Dr....

Tomato farmer complains about the role of the Mafia in southern Italy's fruit and vegetable trade. Last May police broke up "an unusual alliance of Italy's three main crime syndicates controlling wholesale produce markets, including price fixing" as reported by The Associated Press. The 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia, the Camorra or Neapolitan Mafia and Cosa Nostra or Silican Mafia "dropped traditional rivalries to join forces in running fruit and vegetable wholesale markets in central and southern Italy," and "authorities said the mobsters fixed high prices, at the expense of consumers, and decided which trucking companies transported the produce." Police seized...

NAPLES, Italy – They go by such nicknames as "Fat Cat" and "Tomboy." Their simmering power struggles once drove them into the streets, guns blazing. They rule their crime families with steely determination, and also raise the kids and stir the pasta. Move over, Don Corleone. Godmothers are rising in the ranks of the Camorra, the Naples' area crime syndicate. Women have long played a strong role in Camorra crime families, muscling, sometimes murdering, their way to the top. Their influence stretches back as far as the 1950s when a pregnant former beauty queen dubbed "pupetta" (little doll) shot dead...

Mexican drug traffickers are funneling cocaine to Italian organized crime, and some shipments are moving through Dallas. "We've got some of the major cartel members established here dealing their wares in Europe," said James Capra, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas office. .... Across the Atlantic, demand for cocaine is high and prices are up. A kilo sold for $20,000 in Dallas is worth up to three times as much overseas, experts say. Mexican cartel operatives in North Texas "are dealing with Italy, Spain, you name it," he said. "They can operate their logistical center from here and coordinate...

The rubbish crisis in Naples, where heaps of toxic and foul-smelling waste have been left rotting in the streets since Christmas, is heading for the courts after the European Commission announced yesterday that it was taking Italy to the European Court of Justice. Italy’s Prime Minister-elect, Silvio Berlusconi, responded by promising decisive action to resolve the emergency and avoid EU fines. The developments came as barricades and protests returned to the streets of Naples, amid public fury over the crisis. Firemen have been called out to dozens of fires over the past few days as desperate residents burn the rubbish...

AT night the mice and the dogs are masters. The garbage is piled up to the second floor of the houses, and in the darkness it comes alive. Plastic bags and sacks vibrate, emitting the sounds of things pulled apart, scavenged. By day the rats disappear, the dogs are quiet, and men, women, children reappear. The traffic, normally chaotic, here and there is stopped by overturned garbage cans and the trash that blocks the streets. The garbage — thousands of tons of it — has gone uncollected for three weeks, because all the available landfills are full. The evil odor...

Italian media report that Al Qaeda is moving operatives through Italy on their way to North Africa and Europe with the help of [the] Naples-based Camorra. Italian investigators say Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization is moving deep into the Mediterranean peninsula's underworld of organized crime. Italian media recently revealed that hundreds of Al Qaeda operatives coming from North Africa are being sent to Northern Europe though a maze of safe houses belonging to the Neapolitan Camorra, a Naples-based criminal network akin to the Mafia. The internationally connected Camorra organization specializes in drug trafficking, prostitution, gambling and human and arms trafficking. Historically, the...

Italian Mafia tied to Islamic terrorists Associated Press ROME - Italian mobsters and Islamic terrorist groups have forged links in arms and drug trafficking, Italy's top anti-Mafia investigator said. Pierluigi Vigna, Italy's national anti-Mafia prosecutor, singled out a Naples mob known as the Camorra, which deals in arms and drugs, among other rackets. "There are ties without doubt," Vigna told reporters Monday at a briefing at the Foreign Press Association. "We have evidence that Camorra groups are implicated in exchange of arms for drugs with terrorist groups," Vigna said. Asked if these were Islamic terrorist groups, he replied, "Muslim terrorist...