Reign As Boss
Licciardi rose to power and took over as head of the clan, after her two brothers, Pietro and Vincenzo, and her husband were arrested. She was the first female Camorrista to become the boss of the Licciardi clan, and take over as head of the Secondigliano Alliance. The death of Gennaro Licciardi caused some disruption in the local underworld, as well as several bloody attempts to seize control, but the clan was kept in stable condition by Maria. She brought together a fragile informal coalition of twenty Camorra clans in order to expand control of the city's most lucrative rackets, from drugs and cigarette smuggling to protection and prostitution. She also played a key role in expanding the city's drug trade market. Under her leadership, the Secondigliano Alliance become more organized, secretive, sophisticated and consequently more powerful.
Licciardi introduced many revolutionary changes to the clan. Perhaps the most important among them was the involvement in the prostitution trade. Prior to this, the Camorra had a code of conduct that forbade them from making money from prostitution. However, under Licciardi this code was broken. The Camorra would buy the girls from the Albanian mafia for US $2,000. Many of them came on the promise of legitimate work in order to escape the crushing poverty of their homeland, but once they arrived, they were practically enslaved and forced into prostitution by the Camorra. Many such girls were under age. They were often put on drugs in order to prevent them from escaping, or becoming informants. This helped increase criminal activity, as they usually spent a large part of their income to purchase narcotics for consumption. They were eventually killed when they were too old to remain in service as prostitutes.
Read more about this topic: Maria Licciardi
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