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.
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