Gangsters really a mafia, court says

5 MEMBERS OF POWERFUL CASAMONICA JAILED

They threatened to dissolve her in acid. But Debora Cerreoni would not be cowed and her testimony in Italy has proved decisive in exposing a new mafia – the Casamonica.

The organised crime family hit the headlines in 2015 when it laid on a flashy funeral in Rome for “uncle” Vittorio Casamonica, with his coffin borne on a gilded horse-drawn carriage.

Rose petals were dropped from a helicopter and posters outside the church in the east of the capital declared him the “King of Rome”, while mourners were greeted with music from the film The Godfather.

Despite family members boasting in wiretapped conversations of being powerful enough to challenge Italy’s storied mafias, the Casamonica were long seen as a local, if violent, criminal gang.

But that all changed this week, when a Rome court classified it as a mafia association and sentenced five of its chief members to up to 30 years each, under Italy’s strict prison regime for mobsters.

“It’s a very important verdict, primarily because it destroys the illusion that there is no mafia in Rome,” said Nando Dalla Chiesa, a professor of organised crime at Milan University.

“The city has struggled to accept the fact that there are not just elements of the powerful [Calabrian], Ndrangheta or Camorra crime groups here, but there’s a homegrown mafia too,” he said.

Two other crime families have been designated as mafia in Rome, but both are based in the neighbouring seaside town of Ostia, not in the Eternal City itself.

The court found the Casamonica members guilty of drug trafficking, extortion and usury.

The clan – which has its roots in the Sinti Roma community – controls the southeastern suburbs of the capital and the Alban hills beyond, according to a report commissioned by the Lazio regional authorities in July.

The first Casamonica moved to Rome from the Abruzzo region in 1939. When Vittorio died in 2015, his descendents were known to police as particularly fierce loan sharks with a penchant for bling.

“Uncle Vittorio” cultivated ties to the rich and powerful. He was “a man with contacts,” one witness said.

The family grew rich and built villas with marble and gold furnishings, swimming pools and large stallion statues – a nod to their horse trader origins – as well as bundles of cash hidden in walls, witnesses said.

Cerreoni, the ex-wife of Massimiliano Casamonica, turned state witness after years in which she said she was controlled, belittled and threatened by the family.

“They ruined my life... I hadn’t just married Massimiliano, but the whole clan,” she told the court. –