Maria Licciardi

 

Although the Mafia is by tradition a masculine-dominated organisation, some of the most feared operators in the modern Mafia are the Madrinas, or Godmothers. Over the past century, Mafia woman have been portrayed as the loyal, loving wife and mother, while their gun-toting husbands carried out their Cosa Nostra business. However, across Italy today, times are changing and women are penetrating the male world and are taking an increasingly high-profile role in Mafia activities. The first arrest of a woman suspected to be involved with the Mafia came in 1990, but by 1995 this had escalated to eighty-nine such indictments.

In an effort to keep the Mafia line ‘in the family’ after their husbands are either killed or incarcerated, it appears that women all over Italy have taken command of organised crime. Far from being a far gentler Mafia, these women are taking matters into their own hands, negotiating syndicate structures, clinching drug deals and ordering executions. For example, Concetta Scalisi was arrested in April 1999 on a charge of triple murder. She took over the reins, so to speak, when her father Mafia chief Antonio Scalisi, was murdered by rival mobsters in an ambush in 1982. His position was automatically passed down to his son, Salvatore, but he too was killed due to inter-clan feuding, just five years later. Concetta successfully showed herself equal to the task when she ordered the murder of three men who were seen to be a threat to the Scalisi family.

 

Cappo di Tutti Cappo

Maria Licciardi was considered to be the Cappo di Tutti Cappo (the boss of bosses) of the Camorra family based in Naples, Italy. Among Camorra women, she was respectfully known as ‘the Princess’ and has been described as a born leader with exceptional intelligence. Maria was born on March 24, 1951 in Napoli, or Naples, which is home to the Camorra family. The Camorra are thought to have got a hold on the city shortly after World War II, when they took control of the weapon and cigarette smuggling operations. Since then they have expanded into the drug trade and also control much of the real estate in the area.

Maria knew exactly what the Camorra represented. She had grown up in a world of violence with her brothers all taking an active role. Her elder brother, Gennaro ‘the monkey’ Licciardi, had been appointed the Camorra boss and earned a considerable amount of respect. Even her husband, Antonio Teghemié, was an active member, so Maria had never known any other way of life.

In the role of a mobster’s wife, Maria had been taught to be loyal and tight-lipped, while she looked after her husband and raised their children. However, as the Italian government closed in on the Mafia bosses and put more and more members behind bars, the role of the women started to change. With most of their men either, dead, behind bars or simply not old enough to take over from their fathers, the women had to step in to fill the vacancies in the organisation. One of the first women to take a major role was Rosetta ‘Ice Eyes’ Cutolo. She assumed leadership when her brother Raffaele was put in prison.

Maria, however, had a much longer wait before she took control. She had to wait behind her two brothers Pietro and Vincenzo as well as her husband. It wasn’t until they were all either incarcerated or killed that she got to play a major role. Her first major hurdle was proving to other members of the Camorra that she was worthy of the role, and she did this by setting up meetings with rival Camorra gangs. She boldly told the clans that the fighting and rivalry over territory had to stop, because it was of no advantage and it meant that everyone was out of pocket. Maria advised that the clans worked together in an effort to expand their smuggling, drug dealing and racketeering and in that way they could all make a profit. The leaders of the rival gangs agreed that what she said made sense and Maria realised that she had overcome the first hurdle.

Maria took full control of her family and made one of her first jobs to bring the Camorra into the prostitution business. Until she took over, the family had avoided the trade because of a code of honour, but under Maria that code was broken. They purchased girls from branches of the Albanian Mafia and put them on the streets, taking a high percentage of their earnings. Soon the money was rolling in. To stop the girls from trying to run away or becoming informants, Maria made sure they became addicted to narcotics so they would keep returning to feed their habit. When the girls became too old to become useful, the Camorra simply had them killed off.

Another business that turned profitable under Maria’s leadership, was drug trafficking. The Camorra employed young dealers to sell heroine and cocaine on the streets, making sure they regularly changed their locations. Under the control of Maria Licciardi, the Camorra soon reached new heights, becoming even more violent and tight-lipped. The police found it hard to penetrate their organisation, as many people protected them and worked with them against the authorities.

 

overstepped the mark

Everything was going exceptionally well for Maria Licciardi until one of her Camorra clan was not prepared to accept one of her orders. The disagreement was over a large shipment of pure, unrefined heroine, which Maria felt was too dangerous and would bring law enforcement officers flocking. She ordered that the shipment wasn’t to be sold, but the Lo Russo clan went behind her back. They prepared the drug to be sold on the streets, but their disloyalty soon backfired on them. After just a few days heroine addicts, who had bought the forbidden substance, were found dead on the streets. It was not only the law enforcement officers that clamped down on the Camorra clan, but the public as well, demanding that something was done and fast. The peace that Maria had worked so hard at achieving started to crumble around her feet, as wars between the rival clans erupted once more. As soon as a member of the Licciardi clan was attacked, Maria declared war. It is estimated that as many as 100 mobsters were killed during this period.

Law enforcement officers started closing in and before long Maria Licciardi was on the ‘thirty most wanted Italians’ list. She decided it would be safer for her to go into hiding, but even from her retreat she still managed to control her family. As soon as Maria felt that prosecutor Luigi Bobbio and his men were getting too close, she decided to take appropriate action. In January 2001, she sent Bobbio a warning by bombing his office building. It didn’t have the desired effect – in fact it had the reverse reaction – and Bobbio increased his forces and gradually started to break through the Licciardi wall. Bobbio arrested seventy Licciardi men, who all maintained a code of silence, accepting a term of imprisonment instead. Maria herself seemed untouchable and, apart from one photograph, the police really had no idea what she looked like. Bobbio felt sure that she would have changed her appearance while in hiding and they really were unsure of what to look for. However, he kept up the pressure and eventually Bobbio discovered the whereabouts of her hideout.

On June 14, 2001, the police raided a house and found Maria Licciardi looking exactly the same as the photograph they had recently distributed. Maria, who was now fifty years old, decided it was hopeless to try and resist arrest and she was taken into custody. Maria Licciardi’s reign as the Camorra boss was now officially over.

 

erminia giuliano

Another Camorra woman to take over the lead of a clan, was Erminia Giuliano. She took over the role as boss of the syndicate when her brothers Guglielmo Carmine ‘the Lion’ and ‘Little Liugi’ Guglielmo were both arrested. She was nicknamed the ‘Queen of the Clan’ and showed the qualities of a true leader usually associated with crime godfathers. At the age of forty-five, the matriarch reorganised the syndicate’s structure and daily operations and she eventually became one of the most dangerous criminals wanted by the Italian police.

When law enforcement agents got too close for comfort, Erminia went into hiding in her daughter’s flat in the Forcella quarter of Naples, which was the heartland of the Giuliano clan. She managed to avoid arrest for ten months, but eventually the police managed to track down her hideout. They stormed the house just after midnight, destroying the front door as they charged into the flat. The flat had been used as a base to build a drugs, counterfeiting, extortion and gambling empire. Erminia was discovered hiding in a secret room, which was concealed behind a kitchen cupboard and a sliding wall panel. She was no wilting wallflower, and as the officers placed handcuffs on her wrists, Erminia told her daughter, ‘I am counting on you now . . . I have taught you all the true values in life.’

Ironically, before she would leave the flat, Erminia told the officers she wanted a beautician to come and attend to her hair and makeup. She eventually walked out looking immaculate in her leopard-print coat and stiletto heels.

It took a while for Italians to realise the danger that women posed within the Mafia. However, they are now only too aware that women have become entrenched in mafia values just like their male counter­parts. They have proved to be just as ferocious and ruthless as men – if not even more.