page_title: Nuova Camorra Organizzata
section_title: Structure
hierarchical_section_title: Nuova Camorra Organizzata / History / Structure
caption_attribution_description: English: Structure of "Nuova Camorrra Organizzata" (NCO), an italian Camorra criminal organization founded in the late 1970s by Raffaele Cutolo.
context_page_description: The Nuova Camorra Organizzata was an Italian Camorra criminal organization founded in the late 1970s by a Neapolitan Camorrista, Raffaele Cutolo, in the region of Campania. It was also known by the initials NCO. The organization was established with the purpose of renewing the old rural Camorra, which dealt in contraband cigarettes and extortion schemes in the Neapolitan fruit market. To this end, Cutolo created a structured and hierarchical organization, in stark contrast to the traditional Camorra clans which are usually fragmented. The members of the NCO were often referred to by rival Camorristi and Italian law enforcement as "Cutoliani".
  According to the Italian Justice Department, by 1981 the NCO had become the strongest Camorra clan and one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the nation, providing a living for at least 200,000 people in the Neapolitan area alone. It was distinctly hostile to the Sicilian Mafia, but had an alliance with numerous Calabrian 'Ndrangheta clans, in addition to the Nuova Grande Camorra Pugliese, which was the precursor to the Sacra Corona Unita in Apulia.
context_section_description: The NCO developed two parallel structures, one inside the penitentiary system called "cielo coperto" (covered sky), and the other outside the penitentiary system called "cielo scoperto" (clear sky). Since Cutolo and many NCO members were serving life sentences, communication between these two structures were of utmost importance. To retain his leadership, Cutolo needed to relay his orders to NCO members outside in an effective and reliable way, while simultaneously insuring that some of the profits generated by the expansion be delivered to prisons so that he could expand his recruitment drive.
  The peculiar conditions at Poggioreale prison which included its strategic location in the centre of Naples Western District and continuous flow of people such as parole violators and relatives of prisoners, to and from the prison made it possible for the NCO to successfully coordinate criminal activities from their centralized location. The NCO used this continuous flow to bring money and goods to prison and to send directives to their associates for outside operations. The relatives who could visit daily were being used as primary couriers, but when they were unavailable, some of these associates would be certified on paper as kin through the courtesy of obliging clerks from various municipalities in the area, especially Cutolo's municipality in Ottaviano.
  As the Justice Department discovered in 1983, Cutolo was visited daily from July 1977 to December 1978 by Giuseppe Puca who had a document from Ottaviano's municipality certifying him to be Cutolo's first cousin. He had also received three visits from another NCO member, Giuseppe Romano, one as Cutolo's brother-in-law, one as compare and finally as first cousin. The NCO became the organizing principle of a new kinship system based on Comparaggio, first cousins and allied kin, which was formally written into the municipal registry by obliging local bureaucrats.
  Once the first NCO group became operative and started generating profits, Cutolo established the soccorso verde (green cross) to help the NCO recruit new members from the prison population, providing them with clothes, lawyers, legal advice, money for themselves and their families, and even luxury items. There was a regular procedure for this financial allocation to prisoners. From the very beginning, Cutolo had his men set aside 500,000 lire from each successful operation in a fund for the prison population. This fund was distributed to inmates belonging to the NCO all over Italy through wire service by Raffaele's sister Rosetta Cutolo and some NCO lieutenants.
  In an attempt to control the entire region, the NCO surpassed the family structure of the urban Camorra. The NCO was an open structure with new members incorporated at a rate of 1,000 per year. Membership was open to everyone, the primary requisites being swearing loyalty to Cutolo and contributing to the common criminal activities. However, as soon as the organization's business expanded and there was a need for more manpower, recruitment became more aggressive and later, even mandatory. In prison, people were forced to become members of the NCO. Failure to do so would often result in the murder of the unwilling prisoner.
  The organization was a federation of different gangs, with their own territorial areas of action, but hierarchically ordered and tightly controlled by Raffaele Cutolo. A document found on pentito, Pasquale D'Amico, described the organization as a "Door-to-door sales business, specializing in underwear and lingerie". Cutolo was the CEO. There was a vice-chief executive at large (Vincenzo Casillo replacing Cutolo for emergency decisions, since Cutolo's reaction time was delayed by his imprisonment), an executive board (on which sat the members of the original group), then area managers, branch managers, and finally, salesmen in charge of collecting the weekly money from their rackets. Outside of prison, there was an executive meeting every fifteen days, where Rosetta Cutolo, who as the boss's sister, could easily communicate with him in prison.
caption: Structure of NCO
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