The police had searched all around Italy, so when the tip-off came they could not help smiling. The crime boss was in the family home, issuing orders from a secret room behind a kitchen cupboard and a sliding wall panel.
Waiting until midnight, armed Âofficers stormed the Forcella quarter of Naples, heartland of the Giuliano clan. Doors splintered as they charged into a flat in which drugs, counterfeiting, extortion and gambling had been built into an empire. After 10 months on the run Erminia Giuliano, queen of the Naples Mafia, had been snared.
When the police raided another clan two weeks earlier, in the GraziÂella quarter of Syracuse, east Sicily, they seized guns and ammunition — the Corsi family needed hardware for heroin-running — but their priority was to capture the leaders. The 11 men they arrested were mostly footÂsoldiers: the generals were among the 12 women also caught.
It is a pattern repeated across Italy, reversing all stereotypes. Women are taking command of organised crime: negotiating syndicate structures, mapping strategy, clinching deals and ordering executions.
Last February sisters Maria and Teresa Zappia were arrested on suspicion of heading one of the Calabrian syndicates known as the ‘Ndrangheta. Across the Strait of Messina, Concetta Scalisi reigned over a so-called triangle of death, bringing drugs, Âextortion and usury to three towns on the slopes of Mount Etna until she was caught in April 1999.
Until that midnight raid just Âbefore Christmas, Giuliano (45) was the undisputed head of one of the leading families in the CamÂorra, the Naples Mafia. “She was a true leader, with all the qualities usually associated with crime godfathers,” said Naples police chief Carlo Gualdi. Ranked as one of Italy’s 30 most dangerous criminals, Giuliano was expected to appear in court this week to be charged with criminal association.
Her rival, Maria ÂLicciardi (49), who rules the SecondiÂgliano quarter, continues to evade a police search Âafter a gang war last year in which more than 50 people died. On it goes, a list of women who Âappear to have revolutionised a sub-culture in which chauvinists valued submissive females for marriage links and childbirth. As if to confirm the revolution, the Italian media have gleefully bestowed nicknames.
Giuliano’s blue eyes earned her Celeste –meaning heavenly — though she is also known as Lady Camorra. Licciardi is the Princess. Others are Ice Eyes, Queen, Lady Clan. It is an intoxicating cocktail: girl power with guns, gangsta mamas, gorgeous but merciless femmes fatales. Except it is not quite what it seems.
Mafia Âmythology is substituting omnipotent matriarchs for wives who silently served pasta to husbands plotting murder. Neither image is accurate. Some women are Âtaking control, but they would never dare do so by Âelbowing aside male competition.
Only when their men have been killed or jailed and there is no obÂvious successor do they step in. There have been many vacancies in recent years. Jails are full of bosses and lieutenants betrayed by thousands of Âsupergrasses.
Giuliano became boss only after the last of her five brothers was imprisoned. Licciardi would not be in charge had not the next male relative in line been murdered. Ditto the Zappia sisters and Scalisi. “These are resourceful, strong women but they are mostly stop-gaps, waiting for men to come out or sons to grow up,” said a Naples prosecutor.
More significant is the way women are engaging in the nuts and bolts of crime, moving on from preparing and running drugs to accountancy and extortion. “Economic and financial operations, including money laundering, are increasingly dominÂated by women. They have entered the Â’enterprise syndicate’ but not the ‘power syndicate,'” Alison Jamieson wrote in her book, The Antimafia.
The process is helped by the march of Italian women into the workforce and Âuniversities. In 1990 one woman was indicted for Mafia association. By 1995 there were 89 such indictments. Even if it is not quite a revolution, women are playing a decisive role in rebuilding the Mafia after a sustained assault by the state. Â
Giuliano’s behaviour as officers Âinvaded her kitchen suggests that the change is irreversible. After insisting on a shower and visit from her hairdresser, she donned high heels, a fake leopard-skin coat and handcuffs, and told her daughters: “I’m counting on you now. I am relaxed. I have taught you all the true values in life.”