Naples – They called him Princeoppress The designer donor again Or barge. Cosimo Di Lauro, born in 1973, had earned a place in the galaxy of organized crime in Naples
prominent well before becoming the regent of the homonymous clan in the period in which the district of Scampia entered the international news for the bloody struggle between gangs linked to control
of what was once the largest shop in Europe.
The first nickname had been given to him by the chroniclers, also because he was the eldest son of Paolo Di Lauro, known as Ciruzzo or millionaire, clan chief of that district of the northern area of Naples that had created an empire on drug dealing thanks to his contacts in the Iberian peninsula who guaranteed him rivers of drugs to feed his network of drug dealers. The second was linked to his passion for designer and flashy clothes, accessories and objects.
When Paolo Di Lauro became fugitive, in September 2002, the management of the clan naturally passed into the hands of Cosimo, who increasingly centralized the drug business, one of the most profitable of the criminal group, delegating the retail trade to the heads of the square in exchange for payment of a tax to the Di Lauro. To him, according to more than a repentant, we also owe one internal purificationambushing old affiliates and replacing them with younger and more violent elements loyal to him.
A choice that triggered grumbles and then, in October 2004, the rebellion of a group linked to Cesare Pagano and Raffaele Amato, leading elements of the Di Lauro who later became known as splinters, and who brought to the new clan they created as a dowry contacts in Spain for drug procurement. A challenge that in the space of a few months caused dozens of deaths in Naples and which is now known as the first Scampia feud, inspiring the novel by Roberto Saviano ‘Gomorra’ and then the homonymous series. Precisely in the series, the figure of Genny Savastano would be inspired by Cosimo Di Lauro.
The arrest
The boss had been arrested on January 21, 2005, in the district called Third World of the Secondigliano district, another stronghold of organized crime and of the Di Lauro family. To prevent him from being handcuffed, objects were thrown from the balconies against the police. Nine months later his father Paolo was also arrested, hidden in a house not far from the family home in via Cupa dell’Arco. In February 2008, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for criminal association of a mafia type. On December 13, 2008, a life sentence for ordering the murder of Gelsomina Verde, the ex-girlfriend of an affiliate who went to the side of the splinters, Gennaro Notturno, tortured and killed to reveal her hiding place on November 21, 2004, whose body was set on fire.
Recently, Cosimo Di Lauro had been sentenced, again to life imprisonment, for the murders of Raffaele Duro and Salvatore Panico, and of Federico Bizzarro, which took place in Mugnano before the 2004 feud.