Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System by Roberto Saviano Page B
Authors: Roberto Saviano
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wagers, the investments that managers make when purchasing drug lots with Di Lauro capital.
Wager:
the term comes from the irregular, hyperliberal cocaine and pill trade, in which there is no measure or certainty. So one bets, like in Russian roulette. If you wager 100,000 euros and things go well, two weeks later you’ve got 300,000. Whenever I come across such exponential figures, I remember what Giovanni Falcone told a group of students: “In order to understand how prosperous the drug trade is, consider that a thousand lire invested in drugs on the first of September become a hundred million by the first of August of the following year.” His example was recorded in hundreds of school notebooks.
The sums Di Lauro’s managers turned over were still astronomical, but getting progressively smaller. Over the long term this sort of practice would strengthen some and weaken others, and eventually—assoon as a group gathered enough organizational and military force—they’d give Paolo Di Lauro the shove. Not just some stiff competition, but the big shove, the one you don’t get up from, a shove with lead in it. So Cosimo ordered everyone be put on salary. He wanted them all to depend on him. The decision ran counter to his father’s ways, but it was necessary to protect his business, his authority, his family. No more loose ties, with everyone free to decide how much to invest, what type and quality of drugs to put on the market. No more liberty and autonomy within a multilevel corporation. Salaried employees. Some were saying 50,000 euros a month. An extraordinary amount, but a salary nevertheless. A subordinate role. The end of the entrepreneurial dream, replaced by a manager’s job. And the administrative revolution didn’t end there. Informants testify that Cosimo also imposed a generational turnover. Immediate rejuvenation of the top management, so no executives over thirty. The market doesn’t make concessions for the appreciation of human assets. It doesn’t make concessions for anything. You have to hustle to win. Every bond, be it affection, law, rights, love, emotion, or religion, is a concession to the competition, a stumbling block to success. There’s room for all that, but economic victory and control come first. Old bosses used to be listened to out of respect, even when they proposed outdated ideas or gave ineffective orders; their decisions counted precisely because of their age. And age was what posed the biggest threat to the leadership of Paolo Di Lauro’s offspring.
So now they were all on the same level; no appealing to a mythical past, previous experience, or respect owed. Everyone had to get by on the strength of his proposals, management abilities, or charisma. The Secondigliano commandos began unleashing their force before the secession occurred. But it was already brewing. One of their first objectives was Ferdinando Bizzarro, also known as
bacchetella
or Uncle Fester, after the bald, slippery little character on
The Addams Family.
Bizzarro was the
ras
of Melito.
Ras
is a term for someone of authoritybut who is still subject to the higher power of the boss. Bizzarro was no longer performing diligently as a Di Lauro area capo. He wanted to manage his own money, to make pivotal, and not merely administrative, decisions. This wasn’t a classic revolt; he merely wanted to be promoted, to become an autonomous partner. But he promoted himself. The Melito clans are ferocious; they run underground factories that make high-quality shoes for half the world and generate cash for loan-sharking. Underground factory owners almost always support the politician who will guarantee the least amount of business regulation, or the regional capo who gets him elected. The Secondigliano clans have never been slaves to politicians and have never wanted to establish programmatic pacts, but in this region it’s essential to have friends.
The very person who had been Bizzarro’s political point man became his
Wager:
the term comes from the irregular, hyperliberal cocaine and pill trade, in which there is no measure or certainty. So one bets, like in Russian roulette. If you wager 100,000 euros and things go well, two weeks later you’ve got 300,000. Whenever I come across such exponential figures, I remember what Giovanni Falcone told a group of students: “In order to understand how prosperous the drug trade is, consider that a thousand lire invested in drugs on the first of September become a hundred million by the first of August of the following year.” His example was recorded in hundreds of school notebooks.
The sums Di Lauro’s managers turned over were still astronomical, but getting progressively smaller. Over the long term this sort of practice would strengthen some and weaken others, and eventually—assoon as a group gathered enough organizational and military force—they’d give Paolo Di Lauro the shove. Not just some stiff competition, but the big shove, the one you don’t get up from, a shove with lead in it. So Cosimo ordered everyone be put on salary. He wanted them all to depend on him. The decision ran counter to his father’s ways, but it was necessary to protect his business, his authority, his family. No more loose ties, with everyone free to decide how much to invest, what type and quality of drugs to put on the market. No more liberty and autonomy within a multilevel corporation. Salaried employees. Some were saying 50,000 euros a month. An extraordinary amount, but a salary nevertheless. A subordinate role. The end of the entrepreneurial dream, replaced by a manager’s job. And the administrative revolution didn’t end there. Informants testify that Cosimo also imposed a generational turnover. Immediate rejuvenation of the top management, so no executives over thirty. The market doesn’t make concessions for the appreciation of human assets. It doesn’t make concessions for anything. You have to hustle to win. Every bond, be it affection, law, rights, love, emotion, or religion, is a concession to the competition, a stumbling block to success. There’s room for all that, but economic victory and control come first. Old bosses used to be listened to out of respect, even when they proposed outdated ideas or gave ineffective orders; their decisions counted precisely because of their age. And age was what posed the biggest threat to the leadership of Paolo Di Lauro’s offspring.
So now they were all on the same level; no appealing to a mythical past, previous experience, or respect owed. Everyone had to get by on the strength of his proposals, management abilities, or charisma. The Secondigliano commandos began unleashing their force before the secession occurred. But it was already brewing. One of their first objectives was Ferdinando Bizzarro, also known as
bacchetella
or Uncle Fester, after the bald, slippery little character on
The Addams Family.
Bizzarro was the
ras
of Melito.
Ras
is a term for someone of authoritybut who is still subject to the higher power of the boss. Bizzarro was no longer performing diligently as a Di Lauro area capo. He wanted to manage his own money, to make pivotal, and not merely administrative, decisions. This wasn’t a classic revolt; he merely wanted to be promoted, to become an autonomous partner. But he promoted himself. The Melito clans are ferocious; they run underground factories that make high-quality shoes for half the world and generate cash for loan-sharking. Underground factory owners almost always support the politician who will guarantee the least amount of business regulation, or the regional capo who gets him elected. The Secondigliano clans have never been slaves to politicians and have never wanted to establish programmatic pacts, but in this region it’s essential to have friends.
The very person who had been Bizzarro’s political point man became his
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