The Camorra has increased its turnover and activities in anticipation of the probable victory of Napoli in the Serie A football championship: currently Inter are first with 68 points, 18 more than the second, who have 12 days available to play recover a disadvantage equivalent to six wins, and this is increasingly unlikely to happen. In recent months merchandising, both legal and above all illegal made up of counterfeit goods, has seen a sharp increase in the volume of production and sales as Napoli gets closer to winning the third Scudetto in its history, 33 years later from the last.
Among the best-selling things lately from the street stalls are the spray cans for coloring hair, given that according to word of mouth in the city, on victory day, fans are supposed to dye their hair blue, the team’s colour.
Stalls selling counterfeit products are practically everywhere, especially in the stadium area and around via Emanuele De Deo, in the Spanish Quarters, where the large mural of Diego Armando Maradona painted in 1990 is located, when Napoli won their second and last scudetto.
The prices on the stalls vary a lot according to the quality of the “pezzotto”, as the counterfeit product is called in Naples. The least expensive and decidedly poor quality T-shirts cost around 15 euros if in a small size, for children, and 20 for adults. At the beginning of the championship, before the team began to win continuously, the same shirts cost respectively between 8 and 10 euros and between 13 and 15. The most requested shirt is the shirt with the number 77 and the name of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the Georgian player bought last summer and protagonist of a debut season of the highest level (so far in the league he has scored 11 goals and made 9 assists).
The highest quality jerseys, which are closest to the original, cost between 40 and 50 euros but, as the newspaper wrote The morning, in many stalls you have to order them to be able to get them. Scarves and hats cost ten euros. The blue trumpet decorated with the 3 of the third shield costs five euros, but in some stalls the price has risen to seven. Then there are the flags with the third shield drawn added to the first two: the larger ones cost around 40 euros but prices are rising and above all, according to the stall holders, it will be increasingly difficult to find them.
In all of this, the Camorra has a non-marginal role, ranging from production to distribution. First of all, the laboratories where the production takes place are increasing in the city, which in some cases are also familiar. The clans in the various neighborhoods control the supplies of the necessary tools, especially the hot presses to imprint the numbers, names and faces of the football players. Many laboratories specialized in the widespread counterfeiting of fashion brands have converted to the production of merchandising for Napoli.
The money for the Camorra also comes from the protection money that the stalls have to pay when they are not managed directly by the clans. It is not a phenomenon present only in Naples. Around the stadiums of the big Italian cities, the cheering stalls are often forced to pay a fee to the ultras bosses of the curves, that is, organized fans who also take advantage of it to “place” their merchandising. And the curves, for many years now, have close links with organized crime. It takes place in Milan, Turin, Rome and also in Naples, where the phenomenon has intensified this year. Obviously in some areas of the city the protection money to pay is higher: for example around the stadium, or near the Maradona mural in via Emanuele De Deo, a sort of secular sanctuary.
– Read also: The long history of friendships and hostilities between Italian ultras groups
Among the most active in the business born around the probable Napoli championship is the Mazzarella clan, among the most powerful in Naples. Born in the 1950s, it was founded by relatives of the Mazzarellas, the Zazas, and specialized in cigarette smuggling. In the following decades, it dominated the market for fake CDs, then that of leather clothing and finally counterfeiting in general. Competing for the market with the Mazzarellas is above all the so-called Alliance of Secondigliano, founded towards the end of the 1980s by Francesco Mallardo known as “Ciccio ‘e Carlantonio”, Edoardo Contini known as “’o Romano” and Gennaro Licciardi known as “’a scigna” ( the monkey).
In general, control over the Napoli merchandising market is involving all the Camorra clans. In the Pianura area last week an act of intimidation known as “stretching” took place under the house of twenty-year-old Gaetano Esposito, known as “Biscotto”, a member of the Calone-Esposito-Marsicano clan, due to a clash that arose precisely for control of the racket of street vendors of scarves, flags and T-shirts. The so-called “stretching” is the act of intimidation: a group passes by scooter in a point controlled by a rival clan shooting into the air and forcing people to lie down on the ground (hence the term). It seems that exponents of the Carillo-Perfetto clan shot outside Esposito’s house.
The area of Naples where the Maradona mural is located (ANSA / CIRO FUSCO)
In the meantime, the Guardia di Finanza has intensified checks and numerous seizures have been made. The lawyer of the Napoli club, Fabio Fulgeri, explained to the Morning: «We are forming a civil party, as requested by the president De Laurentiis from the beginning. We now follow about a hundred trials a year, which will increase in light of the kidnappings of these days. Not only in Naples, but also in Cassino, Velletri, Pisa or in the South».
However, the club is already starting both the production of official merchandising in anticipation of the victory, and the organization of any scudetto party in the city. The president of Napoli, Aurelio De Laurentiis, met the mayor of Naples Gaetano Manfredi to talk about it, given the probable size of the event: the participation of two or three million people is expected. The main part of the party should take place in Piazza del Plebiscito, and there is also talk of a participation by Gigi D’Alessio. The probable dates range from the day of the match against Salernitana, April 30, until May 14, when Napoli will play against Monza.
