43 Facts About Raffaele Cutolo

Apart from 18 months on the run, Raffaele Cutolo lived entirely in maximum-security prisons or psychiatric prisons after 1963.

Raffaele Cutolo, the youngest of three, was born in Ottaviano, a town in the hinterland of Naples, into a close-knit Catholic peasant family with no prior ties to the Camorra.

In desperation, Raffaele Cutolo's father turned to the local Camorra boss, whose influence was absolute in the village.

The victim was an innocent firefighter that helped a girl Raffaele Cutolo had slapped following an alleged insult.

Raffaele Cutolo was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, which was later reduced to 24 years on appeal.

Raffaele Cutolo had established himself as a ringleader, when Antonio Spavone, known as "'o Malommo", was transferred to Poggioreale prison.

Raffaele Cutolo challenged Spavone to a knife fight in the courtyard, but Spavone refused.

From his prison cell, Raffaele Cutolo ordered the murder of Spavone.

Raffaele Cutolo was able to gather under him a small group of prisoners, the nucleus of which would later become the leadership of the NCO.

From within Naples' Poggioreale prison Raffaele Cutolo built a new organisation: the Nuova Camorra Organizzata.

Raffaele Cutolo helped poorer prisoners by buying food for them from the jail store, or arranging for food to be sent in from outside.

In such ways Raffaele Cutolo created many 'debts' or 'rain cheques' which he would cash at the opportune moment.

Raffaele Cutolo founded the NCO in his home town Ottaviano on 24 October 1970, the day of Cutolo's patron saint, San Raffaele.

In such a way Raffaele Cutolo created the most powerful organization ever to exist in the Neapolitan hinterland.

Raffaele Cutolo based his organisation of the NCO on the model of the 'Ndrangheta, its internal codes and rituals.

The NCO strongholds were the towns to the east of Naples, such as Ottaviano, and Raffaele Cutolo appealed to a Campanian rather than Neapolitan sense of identity, perhaps as a result of his poor peasant background.

For instance, Raffaele Cutolo is once reported as having said: "The day when the people of Campania understand that it is better to eat a slice of bread as a free man than to eat a steak as a slave is the day when Campania will win".

Raffaele Cutolo provided them with advice and protection from the brutalities of other inmates.

Raffaele 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".

Raffaele Cutolo spent a great amount of time researching the 19th century Camorra and reconstructed the old Camorristic ritual of initiation.

Raffaele Cutolo took great care in making the ritual a binding social practice.

Raffaele Cutolo infused the old Camorristic traditions with Catholicism and reconstituted the ritual of initiation of the traditional Camorra.

In Poggioreale, where on average there were 25 prisoners to a cell, Raffaele Cutolo managed to obtain a cell to himself with a shower, while Giovanni Pandico, his own personal cook and underwriter occupied the cell next door so that he could serve dishes on request.

The Justice Department found out that between 5 March 1981 and 18 April 1982, Raffaele Cutolo received money orders for an amount of 55,962,000 lire to take care of his daily expenses, of which he reportedly spent half on food and clothes.

Raffaele Cutolo ruled in the Castle Mediceo, the headquarters of the organisation: a vast 16th-century palace with 365 rooms and a large park with tennis courts and swimming pool.

Brilliant with figures, Rosetta Raffaele Cutolo negotiated with South American cocaine barons, narrowly failed to blow up a police headquarters and was glamorised in a film, The Professor.

Raffaele Cutolo then went underground, remaining at liberty for the next 10 years.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Raffaele Cutolo had always wanted to maintain a male-only organization based on principles such as criminal fraternity and so could never be seen giving a role to his sister.

Raffaele Cutolo's NCO became more powerful by encroaching and taking over other group's territories.

Raffaele Cutolo's organisation was too aggressive and violent to be resisted by any individual families.

Raffaele Cutolo requested that if other criminal groups wanted to keep their business, they had to pay the NCO protection on all their activities, including a percentage for each carton of cigarettes smuggled into Naples.

However, no hierarchy between Camorra gangs or stable spheres of influence had been created, and no gang leader was likely to agree to be subdued by Raffaele Cutolo without making a fight of it.

Raffaele Cutolo was instrumental in obtaining the release of Ciro Cirillo, the Christian Democrat member of the regional government of Campania in charge of Urban Planning, who had been abducted by the Red Brigades in April 1981.

Raffaele Cutolo was released within three months because, so rumour has it, the Christian Democrats paid Cutolo to use his influence with the Red Brigades.

When his main 'military' chief, Vincenzo Casillo, was killed in January 1983 by the allies of Alfieri, it was clear Raffaele Cutolo had lost the war.

Raffaele Cutolo was moved to a prison on the island Asinara, 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.

Raffaele Cutolo had previously had a son, Roberto, from a previous marriage who was shot dead in Tradate on 24 December 1990, aged 28, in gang violence.

Raffaele Cutolo's killers were later found dead, their faces riddled with bullets.

The murder had been ordered by Mario Fabbrocino, the boss of the Fabbrocino clan, as revenge for Raffaele Cutolo ordering the death of his brother, Francesco, in the 1980s.

Raffaele Cutolo thought of himself as a predestined man with supernatural powers, able to heal the wounded and raise the dead.

Raffaele Cutolo thought that he had been sent to earth to save the Neapolitan people.

In prison, Raffaele Cutolo received a significant amount of fan mail from youth who were impressed with his achievements as well as his ability to outsmart the authorities.

On 17 February 2021, Raffaele Cutolo died in the prison unit of the Maggiore Hospital in Parma, at the age of 79.