Mafia murders on the streets of an Insta-holiday paradise

The hit took place in the middle of town, on a busy road, just yards from one of Naples’ principal tourist attractions: the National Museum of Archaeology, a grand repository of treasures from the ancient Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Two men on a motorbike drew up alongside the car being driven by Emanuele Durante in Via Santa Teresa degli Scalzi, shot him at close range with a pistol, and then sped off into the traffic.

The 20-year-old’s terrified girlfriend could only scream for help and hold him close as blood seeped from his wounds. By the time he was taken to a nearby hospital, he was dead.

The assassination was just the latest in a string of murders in Naples that have two key factors in common: they all involved young men, some of them in their early teens, and they all involved firearms.

Experts say the rise in gun crime is the result of a toxic combination of factors: increased drug use among disaffected youth, the easy availability of firearms on the dark web, the social effects of the Covid pandemic, the corrosive influence of the city’s Camorra mafia and the emergence of a strand of popular culture that glamorises the criminal underworld.

The shootings have also revealed a brutal side to a city that in recent years has undergone a tourism boom.

There has been an explosion in the number of Airbnb apartments. The port city’s crumbling 18th-century palazzi, kasbah-like medieval quarters, street art and vast murals dedicated to local heroes Sophia Loren and Diego Maradona have proved irresistible to countless Instagram feeds.

But beneath the apparent renaissance, the problems that have long dogged the city remain: poverty, unemployment, neglect by the state and social exclusion.

‘Murdered in cold blood’

Detectives from the Carabinieri police force have obtained surveillance camera footage from the spot where Emanuele Durante was murdered and have launched an investigation. It is thought the killing may have been linked to a vendetta between rival gangs of youths.

In a tearful interview last week, his mother demanded that her son’s killers be found and brought to justice.

“My son was murdered in cold blood. All I am asking for is justice for him. He shouldn’t have died like that,” said Valeria Brancaccio, speaking in front of a framed photograph of her son, which was flanked by flickering candles.

“Today it happened to me. Tomorrow it could happen to you. My son must not be forgotten. My son must receive justice.”

His murder comes just a few months after the last round of bloodletting in Naples.

In autumn, three teenagers were killed in the space of just 17 days. The youngest victim was 15-year-old Emanuele Tufano, who was shot dead in October during a turf war between rival gangs in Naples’s Mercato district.

In another incident, 18-year-old Arcangelo Correra was shot dead, allegedly by a 19-year-old Renato Caiafa.

Caiafa has claimed that the two of them were messing around with a pistol when it went off accidentally, hitting Correra.

He told police he helped take the wounded man to the nearest hospital and said he was “devastated” by what happened. The shooting is still under investigation.

Caiafa’s brother, Luigi, was shot dead at the age of 17 by a police officer during an attempted robbery in 2020.

Historic centre fertile territory for ‘baby gangs’

Some of the shootings have taken place in a district called Sanità, part of Naples’ historic centre.

Tourists who explore its narrow streets delight in taking photos of colourful fruit and vegetable stalls, admire baroque churches, try not to get hit by speeding mopeds and sip on glasses of Aperol Spritz in hole-in-the-wall bars.

But Sanità is also fertile territory for what Neapolitans call, in a strange contortion of English, “baby gangs”.

The phrase may sound comical, but the reality is anything but – it means bands of young delinquents and aspiring mafiosi, usually armed with knives or firearms, dealing drugs and fighting each other for territorial control. Boys as young as 13 now routinely carry knives, experts say.

“Even kids from middle-class families, when they go out for the evening, will put in their pockets their house keys, their mobile phone and a knife or a knuckle duster,” said Patrizia Imperato, a chief prosecutor in the city’s tribunal for minors.

“They say it’s for protection. But if you get into a quarrel and you have a weapon in your pocket, you’ll use it.”

Firearms have become easy to acquire in recent years: on the dark web or even social media. In addition to that, legal firearms such as blank pistols are bought and then modified to fire real bullets.

“We have seen an escalation in recent years in how disputes are settled,” said Emilia Galante Sorrentino, an investigating magistrate. “It used to be a headbutt or a punch. Then we saw knives being used. Now it’s guns.”

Nicola Gratteri, Italy’s most prominent anti-mafia investigator, said: “As time goes by, we are seeing ever more young men dying and committing crimes and becoming involved in organised crime.”

It is a trend that is affecting not only Naples and the surrounding region of Campania but also other parts of Italy, he said at the presentation of a report on the mafia.

Mr Gratteri, who rose to prominence fighting the ‘Ndrangheta mafia in the far southern region of Calabria but who is now the chief prosecutor in Naples, said the only way to combat the problem was with more police and more resources, including the installation of more CCTV cameras on the streets of the city.

Children’s chilling responses

Maria Luisa Iavarone, an education expert and the author of a book about youth violence in Naples, has first-hand experience of street violence.

A few years ago, her son, Arturo, then aged 17, was stabbed 14 times by a gang of youths who wanted to steal his mobile phone. He was lucky to survive: a long slash wound to his neck came within just 2mm of his carotid artery.

“In the last two years we’ve seen a 30 per cent increase in gun crimes involving minors,” she said.

“There are lots of weapons in circulation. Not just knives but firearms. The Camorra clans use these kids as scouts, as drug runners and as sentinels who keep watch on street corners.

“In Naples, you can rent a pistol. You pay 150 euros to have it for a day, which includes a 50 euro deposit – when you return the gun, you get the deposit back. That’s for a ‘dirty’ firearm, which has been used in previous crimes. If you want a ‘clean’ weapon, you need to pay a lot more: maybe 500 or 1,000 euros.”

The danger posed by gun-toting youths is exacerbated by the fact that a lot of them are on drugs – not just cocaine and cannabis but prescription drugs such as diazepam, as well as a new arrival on the market – a mixture of ketamine and MDMA that is known as “tusi” or “pink cocaine” for its distinctive colour.

With teenagers jacked up on drugs and alcohol, the smallest altercation can turn deadly.

A recent study showed that 40 per cent of schoolchildren in Naples between the ages of 14 and 16 were afraid of being assaulted when they went out.

When a secondary school in the Spanish Quarter, an inner city area of Naples, asked its pupils to write down how they felt about their safety, the responses were chilling.

“I count my fingers so as not to look up. I lower my eyes to avoid any hostile glances. It’s only when I reach Via Toledo, where I know I will meet my friends, that I feel safe,” wrote a 15-year-old girl, one of around 40 of the students at the Istituto Superiore Antonio Serra secondary school who expressed their fears.

“I’m afraid of being stabbed or shot,” wrote a teenage boy. “If you accidentally tread on someone’s designer shoes you might not survive until tomorrow.”

The desire for designer trainers, clothes and accessories is fuelled by homegrown rappers draped in gold chains and the depiction of the Camorra in film and TV.

One popular television series, called Mare Fuori or The Sea Beyond, is based on a real-life juvenile detention centre located on the tiny island of Nisida, a few miles to the west of Naples.

The drama showed a glamorised version of life behind bars, said Claudia De Luca, a criminal prosecutor.

“Some kids who are arrested for committing crimes actually ask to be sent to Nisida. They think it’s cool. And they’re seen as heroes by their peers.

“If you come from a difficult background where your parents don’t see you, you want to be visible. So you resort to crime, for a sense of self-esteem. You’re looking to be someone in the community.”

Criminal behaviour by the young has also increased as a result of the pandemic, experts say. Many teenagers struggled with distance learning – those from poorer families could not afford their own computers. Nor was there wifi at home.

“Covid was really tough on a lot of these kids,” said Ms Sorrentino, the magistrate. “Families were crammed together for months, often in situations in which the husband and wife were already fighting. Or there were five people living in a two-room apartment. A lot of kids abandoned school in this period.

“There’s been a huge increase in the number of youths with mental health issues, who closed themselves off in their rooms – the so-called hikikomori syndrome” – or severe social withdrawal.

‘Kids drift towards crime... for easy money’

With low education levels, many teenagers in Naples find they have limited opportunities.

The tourism boom has created plenty of jobs in bars, restaurants and pizzerias, but the wages are abysmally low.

“It’s all cash under the table, there are very few fixed contracts,” said Giovanni, 21, a waiter in a bar in the city centre.

“If you are over 18 then you can expect to earn about 130 euros a week. It’s a joke. If you are under 18, they can get away with paying you 60 or 80 euros a week. It’s no wonder that kids drift towards crime. They’re looking for easy money,” he said.

While the picture is bleak for many Neapolitans, tourists have little to worry about. Violence is rarely directed at visitors.

“Sure, criminality is a problem. But things have changed a lot in the last 30 years,” said Antonio, a taxi driver who ferries tourists around the city. “It used to be that the Spanish Quarter was off limits to visitors, for instance. These days, you can go there without any worries. It’s no longer dangerous.

“If you are a tourist, you’re not a target. Within limits of course – if you walk around with a 10,000 euro watch on your wrist, they’ll snatch it off you.”

The only way to tackle this complex matrix of problems is through early intervention, experts say.

But successive Italian governments of all political stripes have failed to invest enough in Naples’ schools and social services.

“It’s a chronic problem. It has never been adequately addressed, neither by the Right nor by the Left,” said Ms Iavarone.

“We know exactly the areas of Naples where children will grow up to be criminals. Kids who are not even born yet are destined for a life of crime. It would be much better to intervene early, in an intelligent, targeted way,” said the author, whose book on youth crime is called Ragazzi Che Sparano – Kids Who Shoot.

“But investing in the prevention of all these problems is not popular with politicians because it takes 15 to 20 years to see the effects. They don’t have that long-term vision. And as a result, they’ve not managed to break this cycle of criminality.”