Poinsettia shakedown: Italian mafia makes shop owners offer they can't refuse

Four alleged mobsters in Naples were arrested Monday for forcing shop owners to buy Christmas poinsettias at 100 times the wholesale price. The funds were allegedly for jailed Camorra mafia

|
Staff
Would you pay $140 for this? In Naples, that's the price allegedly demanded by the Italian mafia.

Italian finance police on Monday arrested four alleged mobsters for forcing shop owners in Naples to buy Christmas poinsettia plants at more than 100 times their wholesale price to raise money for jailed clan members.

For the past three Christmas seasons, the four mobsters forced business owners to buy the primarily bright-red leaved plant for as much as 100 euros ($140) each to raise funds for the families and legal fees of jailed clan members, the police said.

"It wasn't someone dressed like Santa Claus tapping on the doors of shop owners and businesses (in central Naples)... Instead there were four emissaries of the Mazzarella clan," police said.

The business owners were intimidated and their businesses were vandalized if they refused to buy the Christmassy offerings. The Naples-based Camorra mafia members are accused of extortion, burglary and being members of an organized crime group.

The battle between business owners and the Camorra mafia has been going on for decades. In 1983, The Christian Science Monitor reported that citizens had taken to the streets in protest.

Recently, merchants and artisans closed the city down for two days to protest the extortion racket run by the Camorra. And last week, an estimated 100,000 students, workers, shopkeepers, and churchmen from all over Italy marched in Naples to demand a government crackdown on organized crime.

A recent survey by the shopkeepers association of its 54,000 members revealed 90 percent of the shopwners in downtown Naples pay extortionists. In addition to the Camorra, autonomous local bands have also discovered extortion pays. '

''We're fed up,'' said a weary merchant. ''It's like taxes. You pay one and then another comes along.'' A burned-down cinema house, destroyed ice cream parlor, and smashed storefront are poignant reminders for those who are tempted not to pay.

In 1985, Italy held a mass trial was held for some 640 alleged members of the Neapolitan branch of the Mafia.

In 2004, after the fatal shooting of a teenage girl, a similar rebellion against the Camorra mafia occurred, including a local priest. 

Father Luigi is pushing his flock to break the "omertà," or code of silence, and report the criminals in their midst to the police. He set an example earlier this year by giving the names of 25 local Camorristi to the police.

The men are now all in jail. But as a consequence, the priest has to say mass, run after-school clubs, and make hospital visits with a 24-hour armed police escort.

"Priests aren't supposed to do that sort of thing," he says between cellphone calls from his church office. "Priests are supposed to know about everyone's sins and be trusted to keep them secret. But I have no patience for these criminals."

( Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Poinsettia shakedown: Italian mafia makes shop owners offer they can't refuse
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1216/Poinsettia-shakedown-Italian-mafia-makes-shop-owners-offer-they-can-t-refuse
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe