Head of Naples mafia arrested in Spanish resort

26 June 2006

BARCELONA — Spanish police arrested the head of the Naples mafia in the fashionable resort town of Sitges on Monday.

Carmine Rispoli, 38, widely considered to be the top figure in the Mafia-like Di Lauro clan, is one of the most powerful factions within the Camorra organized crime group from the Naples area.

Police said Rispoli had been sought for four years by Italian authorities, who in April issued a Europe-wide arrest order for him for various activities connected with organized crime, including drug trafficking.

He was taken into custody in the northeastern town of Sitges.

Initial police tracking had placed him in Barcelona, where – evidently – he was using false Italian identity documents.

Later, he turned up in the Galician city of Vigo, where he made expensive purchases and rented property, paying all the time in cash.

Among the transactions, Rispoli bought more than EUR 2,900 worth of fireworks and a EUR 66,930 Porsche.

He also paid in advance a year’s rent on a house.

Once the identity he was using was discovered, Spanish police checked with Italian authorities, who ascertained that the name and other information corresponded to an Italian fisherman with a relatively low income.

Additional checking confirmed that Rispoli was hiding in Spain and living in Sitges under the false identity, so police began monitoring his activities and eventually arrested him.

Police said that Carmine R. is one of the top leaders of the Camorra’s Di Lauro clan, which Italian authorities had thought had practically disbanded after several major police operations in late 2004 and early 2005 to disrupt it.

In a police raid mounted by more than 1,500 police officers using several helicopters in the Naples neighborhood of Scampia, Italian law enforcement authorities arrested Paolo Di Lauro and his son Ciro, who jointly headed an EUR 14. 34-billion-a-year crime empire.

With the arrests, police were trying to put an end to an open war for control of drug trafficking between the Di Lauro clan and a breakaway group known as Gli Spagnoli (The Spaniards) because some of them took refuge in Spain along the southeastern Costa del Sol.

The drug war has taken more than 100 lives among the clashing factions.

After the mafia war ended, Rispoli had become the top figure in the Di Lauro clan.

The Camorra is a criminal organization, or secret society, primarily active in Italy’s Campania region and in the city of Naples.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news