Fears of mafia wars after gangland hits

Fears are growing that a mafia war is under way in the southern Italian city of Naples after two grisly mob hits in as many days.

The body of Domenico Gargiulo, 30, a well-known member of Naples’ Camorra mafia, was found in the boot of a stolen Ford car abandoned in Scampia, the Naples neighbourhood famed for its vast drugs market.

Gargiulo was wrapped in a sheet with a towel around his head to soak up the blood coming from a bullet wound in the back of his neck.

The discovery on Monday occurred a day after Giuseppe Sorrentino, a second mobster, was shot dead as he drove on a busy elevated road near Scampia.

‘‘It looks like a moped drew up alongside him and the gunman riding on the back fired through Sorrentino’s side window, killing him with four bullets,’’ a police spokesman said. ‘‘Sorrentino’s car came to a halt at the side of the road, where other cars could easily have crashed into it. This was a classic mafia-style hit.’’

Sorrentino, 51, was a member of the ‘‘Scissionisti’’, a group that broke away from the clan running drugs in Scampia in 2004, sparking a bloody mob war that claimed 130 lives.

The police spokesman said that it was too soon to say if the two cases were linked, or signified a new turf war, but said that it ended a period of relatively few murders in the area.

Marco Di Lauro, the son of the founder of the clan which split, leading to the 2004 war, was arrested in March this year in a Naples apartment after 15 years on the run, leaving a potential power vacuum.

The Camorra can trace its origins back about 200 years, and comprises a loosely affiliated group of sprawling crime families.

It also has a presence across most of Europe as well as in north Africa, the United States and South America.