Raffaele Cutolo - Sister Running The Business

Sister Running The Business

In Poggioreale, where on average there are 25 prisoners to a cell, Cutolo managed to get a cell to himself with a shower, while Giovanni Pandico, his own personal cook and underwriter occupied the cell next door so that he could serve up dishes on request. When he was transferred to a smaller penitentiary (where his cell was carpeted and completely fitted with a color television and sound system) in Ascoli Piceno, he requested that Pandico follow him, and his request was promptly granted by the prison authorities. Cutolo referred to the prison as “the state of Poggioreale” and is even once reported to have stated, "I am the king of the Camorra. I take from the rich and give to the poor.". As a prisoner, he dressed impeccably with ties and designer shirts, a gold watch and shoes of crocodile skin. His daily meals consisted of lobsters and champagne.

The Justice Department found out that between March 5, 1981 and April 18, 1982, Cutolo received money orders for an amount of 55,962,000 lire (the equivalent in 1982 of $55,000) to take care of his daily expenses, of which he reportedly spent half of this amount (30,600,000 lire or $29,000) on food and clothes. As Cutolo spent most of his time behind bars from where he sends out his instructions, the everyday running of the enterprise was entrusted to his older sister Rosetta Cutolo. Her nickname was "Occh'egghiaccio", meaning Ice Eyes.

Rosetta, a grey-haired, pious-looking woman, lived alone for years, tending her roses. She ruled in the Castle Mediceo, the headquarters of the organisation: a vast 16th-century palace with 365 rooms and a large park with tennis courts and swimming pool. The castle was bought for a cost of several billion lire at the time and provided direct contact for Cutolo from the prisons of Poggioreale and Ascoli Piceno. Brilliant with figures, Rosetta Cutolo negotiated with South American cocaine barons, narrowly failed to blow up police headquarters and was glamorised in a film, Il Camorrista.

After her plan to blow up police headquarters narrowly failed, her stronghold was raided; Cutolo escaped under a rug in a car driven boldly past checkpoints by the neighbourhood priest. She then went underground, remaining at liberty for the next 10 years. In 1993 she gave herself up and only was charged with mafia association: prosecutors alleged she had been running her brother's organisation. She was acquitted 9 times of murder. Rosetta had persuaded the authorities she was harmless, and her frumpy image definitely helped.

However, Raffaele Cutolo has always maintained that that Rosetta knew nothing of his criminal activities and did only what he asked: "Rosetta has never been a Camorrista... She only listened to me and sent me a few suitcases of money to prisoners like i told her to." Nevertheless, it is clear that Cutolo had always wanted to maintain a male-only organization based on principles such as criminal fraternity and so could never be seen giving a role to his sister. It could be argued that he did not want to implicate her and therefore, always insisted that she was innocent.

Moreover, many important members did not believe that she held an important role because she was a woman. For instance, former NCO lieutenant and pentiti, Pasquale Barra argued: "What has Rosa Cutolo got to do with it? What have woman got to do with the Camorra?"

Raffaele Cutolo decided to expand the Camorra to Apulia. The final outcome was not what he had planned. At first local criminals were managing the illegal trades while the Camorra lent financial resources and support demanding 40% of all profits derived from illegal activities. This arrangement proved to be an unstable one: soon the local criminals tried to free themselves from the masters. In 1981, one of them, Giuseppe Rogoli, founded the Sacra Corona Unita, a new Mafia invoking the regional Pugliese identity against the intrusion of the foreign Neapolitans.