Raffaele Cutolo has died. He tried to unite the vast and chaotic Neapolitan underworld in his Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO) in the late 1970s and early 1980s--and did it all from prison. (1) 
Multiple strands of mafia history meet in Cutolo's career. He was initiated into the 'ndrangheta in 1974, and plagiarised the Calabrian mafia's rituals for the NCO. (2)
He plagiarised 19th century poems about camorristi from the prison library to give the NCO an ideology, and himself an intellectual aura. He was known as 'the Professor'. (3)
Many of his recruits were vulnerable young criminals. He turned them into fanatics with an ideology that borrowed elements from extreme left groups of the time. (4)
Most notorious perhaps was the Ciro Cirillo episode. Cirillo was in charge of spending the vast sums allocated for reconstruction after the 1980 earthquake in Irpinia. He was kidnapped in 1981 by the Red Brigades.... (5)
Cirillo's party, the ruling DC, broke its policy of not negotiating with terrorists to pay a ransom and obtain his release. More than that, the DC went through Raffaele Cutolo to negotiate. (6)
Cutolo left a deep impression on popular culture, including Tornatore's rambling Il camorrista (1986) with its famous prison earthquake scene. (7)
Il camorrista sustained Cutolo's own myth about his first having been sent to prison for defending the honour of a woman. In reality he viciously murdered a fire fighter in a senseless road rage episode. (8)
And then of course there is Fabrizio De Andrè's song Don Raffaè, in the voice of a prison guard captivated by Cutolo's charisma. (9 ends)
PS. You can read all about Cutolo in my book Mafia Republic: johndickie.net/books/mafia-re…
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