Italy:Camorra, women bosses arrested
http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2008/novembre/05/Camorra_arrestate_donne_capo_clan_co_9_081105054.shtml
by Fulvio Bufi for the Corriere della Sera - November 5, 2008
Operation in the town of Torre Annunziata. “Donna Gemma”, who together with her husband was in charge of
the Gionta family, has been captured with other eight women.
In a letter the boss’ pieces of advice to his son “ Be careful when you talk and learn to use the Kalashnikov”. Drug pushing is the main business for the family who killed the journalist Giancarlo Siani in 1985.
In Torre Annunziata Donna Gemma is Donna Gemma. Everybody knows her. Crooks and decent people know that she is not only the wife’s boss, but that she is much more because she is appointed to give orders when her husband Don Valentino is in prison. But it’s certainly a surprise to discover that she was in fact in charge of the most powerful organized gang (cosca) in the Vesuvian area. This was clear when she appeared first of a list of 88 preventive detentions issued against the clan. According to the prosecutors, Gemma Donnarumma managed drug and army trafficking and created new strategies as well: together with her, her daughter and seven other women who have all been arrested. Vittorio Pisani, an investigator known to be extremely cautious, expresses his satisfaction:
«This is an historical operation especially because so many important women have been arrested», he says. Franco Roberti, Head of the District Anti-mafia group, agrees with his colleague and defines Donna Gemma and the other women as “deputies” of the gang. Deputies but in charge of a big drug business linked to the Sicilian mafia (especially the Pillera and Puntina families from Catania); an operation worth more than 60 millions euro per year only for the town of Torre Annunziata. Then there were extortions and murders (three in the ordnance, amongst which a penitent’s brother and that of Giancarlo Siani, the journalist killed by the Gionta in 1985). However, drug pushing was the main activity for the famiglia and many young people saw it as an employment opportunity. Wire-tapping from the enquiry prove that someone even asked their friends, or friends of a friend, for a recommendation in order to be hired as a retailer or at least as a lookout. Everything is distorted in the logic of camorra.
Not only the fight against unemployment, but also parents and children relationships. In a letter sealed in the prison of Opera and written by Aldo Gionta, son of Valentino and Donna Gemma, to his son Valentino jr, underage back then and now an enclosed document to the enquiry, we find the words of a loving father and concerned about his son’s future: «Just think about making money for now …you and your friends must be very careful in which places you talk because there are bugs everywhere. Then learn how to shoot machine guns, rifles and Kalashnikov. Do it in safe places where there are no cops, no police. Then once you have learnt well, I will tell you what to do». It’s not difficult to imagine what.
