Courts, Criminals and the Camorra

by Arthur Cheney Train

Known as the “Guardian Angel” or “Confessor” of the Camorra, this priest was chaplain of the Naples Cemetery, and as such was accused of unsavory dealings of a ghoulish nature,[14] but he exerted wide power and influence, had the ear of the nobility and the entrée to their palaces, and even claims to have been the confessor of the late King. Once, a cabby, not recognizing Vittozzi, overcharged him. The ecclesiastic protested, but the man was insistent. At length the priest paid the fare, saying, “Remember that you have cheated Don Ciro Vittozzi.” That night the cabman was set upon and beaten almost beyond recognition. Next day he came crawling to the priest and craved permission to drive him for nothing. Many such stories are told of Vittozzi.

Besides these leaders, there were a score of lesser lights—de Marinis, the “swell” of the Camorra, a mixer in the “smart set,” fond of horses and of diamonds, a go-between for the politicians; Luigi Arena, the scientific head of the corps of burglars; Luigi Fucci, the “dummy” head of the Camorra; and Gennaro Cuocolo, a shrewd “basista” and planner of burglarious campaigns, a little boss, grown arrogant from felonious success. The cast, indeed, is too long for recapitulation.

These met and planned the tricks that were to be turned, assigned each “picciotto” to his duty, received and apportioned the proceeds, giving a due share to the police, and perhaps betraying a comrade or two for good measure—a crowd of dirty rascals, at whose activities the authorities connived more or less openly until the dual murder that forced the Italian government to recognize the gravity of the conditions existing in the criminal world of Naples.

Then, in the twilight of the early morning of June 6, 1906, two cartmen found the body of Cuocolo, the “basista,” covered with stab-wounds by a roadside on the slope of Vesuvius. At almost the same moment in the Via Nardones, in Naples, in a house directly opposite the Commissariat of Public Safety, the police discovered his wife, Maria Cutinelli Cuocolo, stabbed to death in her bed. Both were well known Camorrists, and the crime bore every indication of being a “vendetta.” The first inquiries and formalities were conducted quite correctly. The police arrived on the spot and reported. The magistrate came more deliberately, but in due course. The two places where the crimes had occurred were duly examined, the two autopsies made, and a few witnesses heard. So far, everything had gone on just as it might have in New York or Boston.

But then the Camorra got busy and things began to go differently. Meantime, however, the police had received an anonymous letter, in which the writer alleged that upon the night of the murder (June 5) a certain dinner party had taken place at an inn known as “Mimi a Mare” at Cupra Calastro in the commune of Torre del Greco, within a hundred yards of the scene of the homicide, at which the guests present were Enrico Alfano, Ciro Alfano, his brother, Gennaro Ibello, Giovanni Rapi, and another. While they were drinking wine and singing, a man suddenly entered—Mariano de Gennaro—and made a sign to Alfano, who pledged the visitor in a glass of “Marsala” and cried, “All is well. We will meet to-morrow.” This the police easily verified, and the diners were thereupon all arrested and charged with being accomplices in the murder, simply because it appeared that they had been near by. There was no other evidence. Perhaps the wise police thought that if arrested these criminals would confess. At any rate, the merry-makers were all locked up and Magistrate Romano of Naples began an investigation. At this juncture of the drama entered Don Ciro Vittozzi, girded in his priestly robes, a “Holy Man,” in the odor of sanctity.

He hastened, not to the magistrate having the case in charge, but to another, and induced him to begin an independent investigation. He swore by his priestly office that his godson, Ciro Alfano, was innocent as well as the others. He whispered the names of the real murders—two ex-convicts, Tommaso De Angelis and Gaetano Amodeo—and told where the evidence of their guilt could be obtained. He produced a witness, Giacomo Ascrittore, who had overheard them confessing their guilt and the motive for the murder—revenge because Cuocolo had cheated them out of the proceeds of still another homicide. A police spy, Antonio Parlati, and Delegato Ippolito, a Commissary of police, gave their active assistance to the crafty priest. The prisoners were released, while in their stead De Angelis and Amodeo were thrown into jail.

Then the storm broke. The decent men of Naples, the Socialists, the honest public of Italy, with one voice, demanded that an end should be put to these things—and the Camorra. The cry, taken up by the unbought press, swept from the Gulf of Genoa to the Adriatic and to the Straits of Messina. The ears of the bureaucracy burned. Even Giolitti, the prime minister, listened. The government put its ear to the ground and heard the rumble of a political earthquake. They are shrewd, these Italian politicians. Instantly a bulletin was issued that the government had determined to exterminate the Camorra once and for all time. The honest and eager King found support ready to his hand and sent for the General commanding the Carabinieri and intrusted the matter to him personally. The General at once ordered Captain Carlo Fabbroni to go to Naples and see what could be done. Fabbroni went, summoning first Erminio Capezzuti and Giuseppi Farris, non-commissioned officers of the rank of Maresciallo,[15] sleuths of no mean order. In two months Capezzuti had ensnared Gennaro Abattemaggio, a petty thief and blackmailer and an insignificant member of the Camorra, and induced him to turn informer against the society, and the house of Ascrittore was searched and a draft of what it was planned that he should testify to upon the charges against De Angelis and Amodeo was discovered written in the hand of Ippolito, the Delegato of Police! Thereupon the spy, Parlati, and Ascrittore were both arrested and thrown into prison on the charge of calumny. Vittozzi, the priest, was arrested for blackmail, and his residence was rummaged with the result that quantities of obscene photographs and pictures were discovered among the holy man’s effects! Abattemaggio made a full confession and testified that the five diners at “Mimi a Mare”—the first arrested—had planned the murders and were awaiting at the inn to hear the good news of their accomplishment.

According to his testimony, Cuocolo and his wife had been doomed to death by the central Council of the Camorra for treachery to the society and its decrees. Cuocolo, ostensibly a dealer in antiquities, was known to have for many years planned and organized the more important burglaries executed by his inferiors. Owing to his acquaintance with many wealthy persons and aristocrats he was able to furnish plans of their homes and the information necessary successfully to carry out his criminal schemes. In course of time he married Marie Cutinelli, a woman of doubtful reputation, known as “La Bella Sorrentina.” She, for her part, purchased immunity for Cuocolo by her relations with certain police officials, and her house became the scene of Camorrist debauchery. Thus, gradually, Cuocolo in turn affiliated himself with the police as a spy, and, to secure himself, occasionally betrayed an inferior member of the society. He also grew arrogant, defied the mandates of the heads of the society and cheated his fellows out of their share of the booty. For these and various other offences he was doomed to death by the Camorrist tribunal of high justice, at a meeting held upon May 26, 1906, and presided over by Enrico Alfano. He and his wife—who otherwise would have betrayed the assassins to the police—were thereupon stabbed to death, as related above, on the night of June 5, 1906, by divers members of the Camorra. The adventures of Capezzuti, who, to accomplish his ends, became a companion of the canaille of Naples, form a thrilling narrative. For our present purposes it is enough to say that in due course he formed the acquaintance of Abattemaggio, visited him in prison, and secured from him a list of the Camorrists and full information relative to the inner officers and workings of the organization.

Meanwhile Enrico Alfano having been released from custody had for a while lived in Naples in his usual haunts, but, on learning that the Carabinieri had been ordered to take a hand in investigating the situation, he had gone first into hiding at Afragola, a village near Naples, and had afterward fled to New York, where he had been arrested later in the year by Detective Petrosino and sent back to Havre, while Italian police officers were on their way to America to take him back to Naples. Luckily, the French government was notified in time, so that he was turned over to the Italian government instead of being set at liberty, and was delivered to the Carabinieri in June, 1907, at Bardonacchia, on the frontier, together with fourteen other criminals who were being expelled from French territory. Then Capezzuti, armed with the confession of Abattemaggio, made a clean sweep of all the Camorrists against whom any evidence could be obtained and conducted wholesale raids upon their homes and hiding places, with the result that Rapi and the others were all arrested over again.

During the next four years the Carabinieri found themselves blocked at every turn owing to the machinations of the Camorra. Abattemaggio made several independent confessions, and many false and fruitless leads had to be run down. The police (“Public Safety”) were secretly hostile to the Carabinieri and hindered instead of helped them. Indeed, they assisted actively in the defence of the Camorra. Important documents were purloined. Evidence disappeared. Divers magistrates carried on separate investigations, kept the evidence to themselves, and connived at the misconduct of the police. The Delegato Ippolito and his officers were tried upon the denunciation of Captain Fabbroni, and were all acquitted, for the Carabinieri were not called as witnesses, and the public prosecutor who had asked for a three-year jail sentence did not even appeal the case! Each side charged the other with incompetence and corruption and—nothing happened.