The First Big Camorra's Cocaine Baron

[furiofromnaples]

Umberto Ammaturo was born in Naples on 21 May 1941 and until his capture in 1993 was one of the most dangerous fugitives in Italy and one of the largest cocaine traffickers in Europe.
In the underworld he was nicknamed "O'Pazzo" (The Made One), due to his aptitude to simulate madness to avoid prison when he was arrested; moreover he was called "Umbertino the fox", due to his cunning and intelligence.
The son of a family with economic problems, he ends up in prison for the first time at the age of 14, once released began the cigarette smuggling in the 1960s, making a name for himself and making friends important Camorristi such as Antonio Spavone and Michele Zaza.
He realizes, however, that the real business is drugs. So he makes alliances with some cocaine producers in Peru and invests money in these operations. In 1974, however, he was arrested again.
Ammaturo like other bosses pay consultants who can falsify psychiatric evaluations. The objective is to pretend to be crazy to get admitted to psychiatric hospitals where the detention regime is certainly less harsh. Thanks to the psychiatric evaluations of Aldo Semerari and Antonio Mottola, Ammaturo manages to be hospitalized first in Aversa and then in Naples. Thanks to the help of Raffaele Ferrara, however, he managed to escape from the structure in 1976.

In 1977 he was arrested again on charges of international cocaine trafficking. Due to the false evaluations, he is again hospitalized in a psychiatric facility. This time, he is sent to Montelupo Fiorentino. He manages, however, to escape from there. He will also escape from the Madia hospital in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto. Meanwhile, a Camorra war broke out in Naples between the NF and the NCO. Ammaturo is a member of the NF, thanks to the excellent close relationships with the members of this clan and with his relationship with Assunta Maresca.

Assunta "Pupetta" Maresca called Lady Camorra became famous because at 20 and in the sixth month of pregnancy, she killed the alleged principal of the murder of her husband, a guappo that controlled the fruit and vegetable market and for holding a press conference in 1981 in which she openly challenged Raffaele Cutolo.
In 1974 his son Pasquale was killed in an ambush: the body was never found (according to some, he was kidnapped, tied to a stone and thrown into the sea). Pasquale had not accepted his mother's relationship with Ammaturo and had repeatedly threatened him. Ammaturo was immediately suspected of the murder, but Pupetta never fully accepted this hypothesis. Umberto Ammaturo was in any case imprisoned, but in April 1975 he was acquitted for lack of evidence;this was the end of their relationship. When Ammaturo was arrested in Peru, in the company of a new beautiful and rich girlfriend, Yohanna Valdez, Maresca said: «For me Umberto no longer exists; he remains only the father of my children, who love him and respect him as is their duty ".

Ammaturo, in any case,was always a loner,a camorrista without territory and dedicated only to drug trafficking, he spends more and more time in Peru and the fact that he is on the winning side of the great Camorra war means that most of the cocaine sold in Italy come from him.
He is arrested again in 1982 but pretending to change his life he manages to escape again.
The boss goes to Senegal first, then to Brazil. Sentences continue to arrive from Italy in various criminal trials. In 1990 he was arrested in Brazil. The boss knows that he will soon be extradited and that, therefore, it is necessary to act quickly. He manages to bribe the prison guards and escapes once again. His new destination is Peru. Ammaturo, however, this time really seems to want to close with the crime. He has, by now, accumulated a lot of money that he prefers to use for legitimate activities.

Unfortunately for him, in Italy they have not forgotten about him (and his importance as a drug trafficker has also attracted the DEA) the Nuova Famiglia is decimated by pentiti and the Italian authorities manage to track him down, still in Peru, where he has rebuilt a life. In fact, he is romantically linked to a doctor from Lima and a son is born from their relationship. In 1993, however, he was arrested. His new partner knows nothing of his man's past. He discovers everything on the day of his arrest. The change of identity of the boss, known in Peru under the name of Jose Daniel Venturini, was worth nothing.
Ammaturo is quickly extradited. The former drug trafficker has, however, changed his life and is ready to help the state. After the arrest, therefore, the boss decides to become a collaborator of justice. The New Family knows that Ammaturo is aware of many burning secrets. Not even the murder of Antonio Ammaturo, Umberto's brother, convinces him to retrace his steps. His children and his Peruvian partner prove decisive in his choice to continue to collaborate.
In 1981 during the Camorra war between NCO and NF Ammaturo ordered the murder of Aldo Semerari, the psychiatrist guilty of having made false psychiatric reports for both parties.
the man was killed his head sawn and placed in a bucket on the seat of a car while his body was in the trunk of the same car that was found in Ottaviano, a fiefdom of Raffaele Cutolo.
However, the judges did not believe his version and the men he had accused were acquitted of the charges.
Umberto Ammaturo now lives in a protected location, has a new identity and also a new job. His properties in Naples and South America were confiscated.

[PolackTony]

Great article. The part where it states "'O'Pazzo' (The Made One)" should of course read "The Mad One". If he were an American mob guy his nickname would've been Bertie Oobatz, lol.

[furiofromnaples]

Great article. The part where it states "'O'Pazzo' (The Made One)" should of course read "The Mad One". If he were an American mob guy his nickname would've been Bertie Oobatz, lol.

Sorry Polack Tony,I made a mistake in the translation,anyway in the 1970s and 1980s many criminals used psychiatrists to pretend to be insane like DeNiro in Analyze That.Aldo Semerari was a great psychologist and criminologist but he made the mistake of meddling with criminals because he was a fascist and wanted to use them for subversive purposes.

[furiofromnaples]

https://napoli.repubblica.it/cronaca/20 ... o-4312237/

"I cut off Semerari's head, he had betrayed our agreement"
by ELIO SCRIBANI

The revelations of Ammaturo: for me Bardellino is alive

Four adjectives for him: gentle, calm, measured, elegant. You would say a pensioner, a father of a family, an ordinary man. You would not imagine that he was, instead, a ferocious godfather of the Camorra and that he has a long chain of murders on his conscience. His name has marked the history of the Neapolitan underworld. His name is Umberto Ammaturo.
He was a head of the "Nuova Famiglia" and a boss of international drug trafficking, he fought a clan war against Raffaele Cutolo's NCO that left seven hundred corpses on the field. He was the partner of Pupetta Maresca, the widow of "Pascalone 'from Nola".

In this exclusive interview, the former boss and collaborator of justice retraces the dark events of the Camorra. And he makes sensational revelations.
One even chilling: it was he himself who cut off the head of the criminologist Aldo Semerari and deposited it in front of the castle of Cutolo in Ottaviano. The interview takes place in a protected location.

Umberto Ammaturo, do you think the boss Antonio Bardellino is alive or is he dead?
"I've already told the authorities: I don't think Bardellino is dead".

Does he mean he's alive?
"He is missing, killed in Brazil, if I am not mistaken, but the body was never found. Whoever kills, especially in the case of Bardellino, has an interest in having the body found to prove that he was killed".

Let's talk about Raffaele Cutolo. What do you remember about him?
"Crime is pathology, but Cutolo is pathological for himself. If it were not so, he would have taken the path that all the lbosses of the time took, Ammaturo, Alfieri, Galasso and so on."

Does he mean the path of collaboration with the justice?
"Yes, because beyond what one felt inside when decided to totally change existence, collaboration is also a technical choice".

And what do you remember of Donna Rosetta, Cutolo's sister?
"Nothing, a woman like the others that he involved and forced to be the bearer of his orders".

What were the relations between the Camorra and politics at that time?
"Personally, I have not received favoritism either from lawyers or from magistrates or from policemen, I have always been captured and convicted. From what I read in the newspapers, there were entanglements, but the rotten apple can be found in every sack".

Let's talk about the kidnapping of the former regional councilor for public works, the Christian Democrat Ciro Cirillo, which took place on the April 28,1983, do you think there are still mysteries to be revealed?
"I don't dare to speculate,I abstain".

And about the death of the criminologist Semerari?
"I cut off his head."

Did he personally kill him?
"Yes, because he had pledged with us in the New Family to look after our things, and he was well paid by me personally, but Cutolo had someone killed in the security rooms of the court and Semerari gave him a false report to get him acquitted".

Did she consider him a traitor?
"He was a traitor, whoever takes an agreement and doesn't keep it is a traitor. We're talking about the criminal world, aren't we?"

Let's talk about your clan, how many men did you control?
"I was with one foot in Italy and another in South America, I had men here and there who were going back and forth. About thirty".

How did he choose them?
"We took them as drug mules, then, if someone stood out , we made him commit something".

A murder?
"A murder, in short, an action, and from that moment on he was no longer a mule but he became part of the family".

Has he ever been afraid of being betrayed by one of his men?
"Whoever betrayed has been killed".

And were you afraid of being killed too?
"It was happening, but someone failed and was killed."

So, have they tried?
"Mainly Pasquale Forino".

Was he one of the your most trusted man?
"Exactly".

And he tried to kill you?
"Yes, because he wanted to take my place."

Does he tell me the story with Pupetta Maresca?
"We met with Miss Maresca".

In 1970?
"A little before '70, in '66 or '67, and we got together, we had two children, then it happened that they arrested me, I had to tell the truth about facts in which his brother was also involved and from there the break has come. "

So, is the story over for his revelations involving Pupetta Maresca's family?
"Yes, but also because of my long absences. I left the judicial asylum in 81, where I was pretending to be crazy, after a year I was arrested, in 1987 I left due to expiry of the terms, I went to South America, I met another woman from which I had three children ".

The last time you were arrested in Peru, did you lead a luxurious life as a fugitive?
"Well luxurious, it was a rhythm of life".

Is it true that in Lima you were a financial advisor to three private clinics and managed your own real estate company?
"It is true".

It is said that she escaped from the prison in Brasilia by going out through the main door. Was it really like that?
"They opened the cell for us at night, a helicopter was waiting for us, we crossed the Amazon and I was deposited in Peru".

How important was corruption while she was on the run?
"In South America a lot, here in Italy we don't really talk about it".

How much money was involved in drug trafficking?
"Billions of lire. In fact, the judicial authority has seized billions of old lire from me in Naples and also in South America".

Are you now a poor man?
"I am a man who has been working and paying taxes to the state for twelve or thirteen years. I have my income."

So, does he live off his work?
"I live off my job and pay taxes to the state. The authorities can confirm this."

Do you believe in God?
"I believe in God, I believe in a supreme being, but I don't believe in all this ... wheel."

Is the relationship with his conscience today peaceful?
"I've been calm, yes, for fifteen years now."

What about the past?
"I would be a hypocrite if I said that I am really calm. And what: have I absolved myself?".

What is your opinion of that past?
"If we had had the opportunity, as I do today with my children, to guide and follow them ... no one is born with crime in their blood, we become criminals".

What do you think of "Gomorra", the book written by Roberto Saviano?
"That's fine for public opinion, but the police are the ones who bring about the destruction of the underworld."

Do you have a message to give to young people who are attracted by the Camorra?
"The most concrete message should be given by the state".

[motorfab]

Umberto Ammaturo is a very interesting character of this era, I appreciate the effort of your text furio

[furiofromnaples]

Umberto Ammaturo is a very interesting character of this era, I appreciate the effort of your text furio

Thanks Motorfab.

[PolackTony]

The son of a family with economic problems, he ends up in prison for the first time at the age of 14, once released began the cigarette smuggling in the 1960s, making a name for himself and making friends important Camorristi such as Antonio Spavone and Michele Zaza.

I wonder if Antonio Spavone was related to well-known Chicago singer and restauranteur Tony Spavone (Tony Spavone's Ristorante in Bloomingdale, IL). Tony Spavone came to Chicago as a kid in the 60s from Naples with his parents Giuseppe (also a longtime chef and restauranteur in Chicago) and Rita Spavone. The Spavone surname is not very common, so I think there's a decent chance they're related.

EDIT: Actually, this seems very possible. I note that Camorra boss Antonio Spavone was born 1926/05/15 and, per Wikipedia at least, was said to have fled to the US in the 1970s to undergo plastic surgery. I found a record for an Antonio Spavone resident in Chicago, birthdate 1926/05/15. Apparently, Antonio Spavone had a brother named Giuseppe, who fled to the US after being tortured by the police in Napoli.

FWIW, there are rumors that the Chicago Outfit used Tony Spavone's restaurant in the 1990s for making ceremonies, though to my knowledge those have not been substantiated. The place was an Outfit hangout back in the day, from what I know.

[PolackTony]

The son of a family with economic problems, he ends up in prison for the first time at the age of 14, once released began the cigarette smuggling in the 1960s, making a name for himself and making friends important Camorristi such as Antonio Spavone and Michele Zaza.

I wonder if Antonio Spavone was related to well-known Chicago singer and restauranteur Tony Spavone (Tony Spavone's Ristorante in Bloomingdale, IL). Tony Spavone came to Chicago as a kid in the 60s from Naples with his parents Giuseppe (also a longtime chef and restauranteur in Chicago) and Rita Spavone. The Spavone surname is not very common, so I think there's a decent chance they're related.

EDIT: Actually, this seems very possible. I note that Camorra boss Antonio Spavone was born 1926/05/15 and, per Wikipedia at least, was said to have fled to the US in the 1970s to undergo plastic surgery. I found a record for an Antonio Spavone resident in Chicago, birthdate 1926/05/15. Apparently, Antonio Spavone had a brother named Giuseppe, who fled to the US after being tortured by the police in Napoli.

FWIW, there are rumors that the Chicago Outfit used Tony Spavone's restaurant in the 1990s for making ceremonies, though to my knowledge those have not been substantiated. The place was an Outfit hangout back in the day, from what I know.

According to "Voce di Napoli", Antonio Spavone was hit in the face by a lupara blast from rival Sicilian mafiosi. He then stayed with his brother Giuseppe in the US while undergoing reconstructive surgery before returning to Napoli. So these are almost certainly the same Spavones.

Per a book on post-war Italy, "Constrostoria della liberazione" by Gigi Di Fiore, Antonio's brother Giuseppe Spavone was a member of a Camorra clan headed by "Gigino 'o Brigante" in the 1940s.