Leonora Dodsworth reports from Rome on the capture of the queen of the

Neapolitan underworld

A DUMPY little woman aged 56 with no distinguishing features, single,

official occupation embroideress. This is the identity kit of Rosetta

Cutulo, ruthless eminence grise of a Neapolitan criminal organisation,

who was captured by the Italian police the other week. Twelve years on

the run in Italy but also probably in Spain, France, and South America,

Cutulo was picked up in Ottaviano, a small town near Naples, focal point

of her criminal activities.

Rather than resisting arrest, Cutulo seemed relieved when the Naples

chief of Criminalpol knocked on her armour-plated door late one Monday

night. ''I'm scared,'' she murmured tearfully. ''I'd have given myself

up sooner but I was afraid they might kill me in prison, so please put

me in a safe place.'' But Rosetta, the sister of Raffaele Cutulo, the

jailed gangster boss of the New Camorra, a Mafia-like crime syndicate

which operated in the Naples underworld, was once feared for the power

she wielded and for her cold-blooded crimes which may have included

murder.

When her brother was imprisoned in the late 70s, Rosetta acted as

go-between carrying messages to his henchmen. But before long, as the

need to fight off rival gangs increased, her own curriculum vitae became

spattered with Camorra crimes and obscure links with terrorism. Not only

mobsters but also mayors and parliamentarians were said to do her

bidding. The gangster brother she adored liked to described Rosetta as a

simple peasant in order to exculpate her but the locals in her Ottaviano

fiefdom knew that she was no sister of the soil.

When a Christian Democrat councillor was kidnapped by Red Brigade

terrorists in 1981, he was released after lengthy negotiations which are

still shrouded in mystery.

But it is suspected that from prison Raffaele Cutulo acted as

''mediator'' through Rosetta in the deal that was struck.

Described as a deeply religious Roman Catholic, Rosetta's presence was

even cited in a convent during her years as a fugitive and a priest who

befriended her renounced Holy Orders to follow her in a peregrination.

Briefly detained in Italy in 1983, he was murdered in an ambush a few

years later.

But when, in December 1990, a rival gang massacred Raffaele's son, the

self-crowned queen of the New Camorra realised that her power had

declined and that nobody would be prepared to help avenge her nephew's

death. Worse still came the awareness that she too could be the next

target for a killer's bullet. From being a dangerous woman, she had

become a woman in danger.

Was her jailed brother offering her a piece of advice last November

when, during a court hearing, he declared: ''I would be really happy if

my sister were to give herself up. I plagiarised her and her only fault

is to have listened to me.''

But even now as the former embroideress most probably faces years of

imprisonment, the strong thread that links her to her mobster-brother

seems to be in no danger of snapping. ''Raffaele and I have made a great

many mistakes,'' whispered Rosetta, loyal to the last as she was led

into custody.