Neapolitan crime families seem to be under some strain as of late. The police has scored several successes and put some of the heads of Camorra (the name of the Neapolitan mafia) families behind bars.
The wives and widows however, which have typically played a secondary support role, are now stepping up and taking affairs into their own hands.
Carabinieri arrested 11 women for drug trafficking in a raid on Naples’ Sarno crime clan in July.
A mother and her two adult daughters were arrested on organised-crime charges, including extortion.
“There is a growing number of women who hold executive roles,” Gen Gaetano Maruccia, commander of the Carabinieri paramilitary police in the Naples area, says.
Some Camorra women still perform the more traditional roles of cutting and repackaging cocaine and heroin in their kitchens or paying teenagers to act as lookouts, others are wielding power on the streets.
Women also extort businesses and shop owners for “pizzo” or protection money and control multi-million pound drug trafficking operations.
“Women are assuming ever-more leading roles,” Stefania Castaldi, a Naples-based prosecutor who investigates organised crime, said.
One of them is Maria Licciardi, one of the victors of a long-running blood feud that in recent years left Naples littered with bodies.
“Signora Licciardi is a true ‘madrina’ (godmother), absolutely,” Castaldi said.
“She was the sister of a boss, and she sat at the table with other bosses, she made decisions with them, she was right at their level,” she added.
Authorities are now investigating whether one of those decisions was an order to execute as many as 30 of her rivals.
