Free Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System by Roberto Saviano Page B

nickname for a boss is like stigmata for a saint, the mark of membership in the System. Anybody can call himself Francesco Schiavone, but there’s only one Sandokan. Anybody can be named Carmine Alfieri, but only one turns around when he hears
‘o
‘
ntufato.
Anyone can call himself Francesco Verde, but only one answers to the name
‘o negus.
Anyone can be listed as Paolo Di Lauro at the registrar’s office, but there’s only one
Ciruzzo ‘o milionario.
    Ciruzzo had decided to organize his affairs quietly, to use extensive force but remain low key. For a long time he remained unknown even to the police. The only time he was summoned by the authorities before he went into hiding was for an incident involving his son Nunzio, who assaulted a professor who’d dared to reprimand him. Paolo Di Lauro was in direct contact with South American cartels and createdvast distribution networks through his alliance with Albanian cartels. Narcotraffic follows precise routes these days. Cocaine heads from South America to Spain, where it’s either picked up or sent overland to Albania. Heroin, on the other hand, comes from Afghanistan, traveling through Bulgaria, Kosovo, and Albania. Hashish and marijuana cross the Mediterranean from North Africa by way of the Turks and Albanians. Di Lauro had direct contact with every point of entry into the drug market, and by adopting a painstaking strategy he became a successful entrepreneur in both leather and narcotics. In 1989 he founded the famous Confezioni Valent di Paolo Di Lauro & Co. Scheduled by statute to terminate activity in 2002, the company was seized in November 2001 by the Court of Naples. Valent had been awarded numerous contracts for cash-and-carry operations throughout Italy, and its corporate potential was enormous, ranging from furniture to fabrics, from meatpacking to mineral water. Valent supplied meals to public and private institutions and oversaw the butchering of all kinds of meats. Its stated objective was to construct hotels, restaurants, entertainment chains, and anything “appropriate for leisure.” According to the statute, “The company may acquire lands and contract or subcontract buildings, shopping centers, or housing.” The City of Naples granted its commercial licence in 1993, and the company was administered by Paolo Di Lauro’s son Cosimo. For reasons connected to the clan, Paolo Di Lauro exited the scene in 1996, passing his shares to his wife, Luisa. The Di Lauro dynasty is built on self-denial. Luisa Di Lauro produced ten children; like the great dames of Italian industry, she increased the number of offspring to keep pace with the family business. Cosimo, Vincenzo, Ciro, Marco, Nunzio, and Salvatore are all clan members; the rest are still minors. Paolo Di Lauro had a predilection for investments in France, with shops in Nice, on rue de Charenton 129 in Paris, and 22 quai Perrache in Lyon. He wanted Italian fashion in France to be shaped by his stores and transported by his trucks; he wanted the power of Scampia to be smelled on the Champs-Élysées.
    But in Secondigliano the great Di Lauro company was beginning to show signs of strain. Its many branches had grown hurriedly and autonomously, and the air was thickening in the drug markets. In Scampia, on the other hand, there was the hope that everything would be resolved like the last time, when a solution had been found over a drink. A special drink, consumed while Di Lauro’s son Domenico was lying at death’s door in the hospital after a serious road accident. Domenico was a troubled boy. The children of bosses often fall into a sort of delirium of omnipotence, believing that entire cities and their inhabitants are at their disposal. According to police investigations, in October 2003 Domenico, together with his bodyguard and a group of friends, attacked the town of Casoria, smashing windows, garages, and cars, burning trash bins, splattering doors with spray paint, and melting plastic