The son of Italian gangster boss who ‘renounced crime’ and ran as anti-mafia candidate is arrested on suspicion of running protection fraud
The son of a powerful Naples mafia boss, who once distanced himself from his criminal roots, has been arrested together with his father for possible extortion.
In 2019, 28-year-old Antonio Piccirillo violated the Italian mafia’s code of silence to expose the actions of the Camorra group – one of Italy’s oldest and largest criminal organizations that his family has been part of for generations.
His arrest now raises questions about whether his anti-mafia campaign was just a front, as investigators have accused Antonio and his father of making extortion demands against business owners managing moorings of rentable boats in Mergellina, Naples.
Antonio allegedly presented himself as his father’s emissary while demanding thousands of euros.
The investigation that led to his arrest began after Italian TikToker Rita De Crescenzo – whose husband managed a mooring – allegedly received death threats from the father and son duo, and reported them.
Antonio Piccirillo (photo), the son of a powerful Naples mafia boss who once distanced himself from his criminal roots, has been arrested together with his father for possible extortion
His arrest is now raising questions about whether his campaign against the mafia was just a front, as investigators have accused Antonio and his father of making extortion demands from business owners who
“If you are going to file a complaint, make sure they write that there are two of us who want to kill you: me and my father,” Antonio allegedly told them.
Rosario, one of the bosses of the Torretta Camorra clan, was last jailed in 2022 for extortion and usury.
But by then, Antonio is said to have turned his back on his father after a four-year-old boy was injured by a stray bullet during a shootout in a Naples square in 2019.
After the tragic incident, he attended an anti-mafia protest where he grabbed a megaphone and told the crowd, “My name is Antonio Piccirillo. I am the son of Rosario Piccirillo, who made many mistakes in his life and was a member of the Italian Camorra mafia.
“Always love your parents, but distance yourself from their lifestyle because it leads nowhere and only causes suffering.”
He then began regularly attending anti-mafia protests, where he denounced the organized crime group Camorra as a ‘mountain of s**t’.
In 2021 he was even a councilor in the local elections, but only received a few hundred votes.
Antonio once told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that his biggest regret in life was not speaking out sooner.
Antonio and his father for making extortion demands against business owners managing moorings of rentable boats in Mergellina, Naples
The recent arrest of the 28-year-old and his father comes after Camorra killers shot an engineer in Naples earlier this year after he exposed the Italian mafia’s construction violence.
Salvatore Coppola, 66, was shot in the face by his killers on March 12 in the parking lot of a Deco store, just meters away from an Apple headquarters, in San Giovanni a Teduccio.
The victim reportedly had past ties in the mafia world and had once been a white-collar criminal close to the Mazzarella clan – historically considered one of the Camorra’s most powerful groups.
But after he left the criminal organization to cooperate with the justice system, police believe he was killed for violating the mafia’s strict code of silence.
Coppola was ambushed by the Camorra assassins on March 12 before fleeing – reportedly leaving no eyewitnesses behind.
The Camorra is recognized as one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating back to the seventh century.
They originated in the Campania region and came to power in the 19th century.
The Camorra’s organizational structure is divided into individual groups called ‘clans’ – of which there are believed to be around 180.