Mafia boss 'the Professor' who ruled from prison dies in jail
3One of Italy's most feared mob bosses who ruled the Neapolitan Camorra from a prison cell for most of his life has died.Raffaele 'the Professor' Cutolo, 79, was found dead on a prison bed in Parma on Wednesday morning after spending the last 42 years of his life behind bars.From jail he established the headquarters of the 'New Camorra' in the 1970s and orchestrated a bloody war against the Sicilian Cosa Nostra in the 1980s. He commanded a legion of 10,000 men who smuggled cocaine and ran protection rackets, fathered a child by artificial insemination, and also inspired a 1986 movie starring Ben Gazzara, all while serving multiple life sentences. The peasant boy from Campania even sat at the table with top politicians as he was asked to negotiate the release of President of Campania, Ciro Cirillo, who was abducted by the Red Brigades, Communist guerrillas, in 1981. 'Cutolo was a piece of the Italian state,' Gomorrah writer and author, Roberto Saviano said. 'He was very powerful, more than a prime minister.' In 1964, 22-year-old Cutolo was jailed for murdering a man who had made a pass at his sister.He was sent to Naples' Poggioreale prison, infamous for its torture chamber, where he was challenged early in his 24-year stint by Camorra don Antonio 'the Badman' Spavone.The young Cutolo asked Spavone to arm himself with a flick knife and meet him in the courtyard.But the boss never showed and from that day on Cutolo was feared throughout the jail.Later when Spavone was released, a hitman, believed to be working for Cutolo, fired a shotgun at his face.Spavone survived but required plastic surgery after lumps of his face were blown off and immediately retreated from his role as head of the Camorra. By the 1970s, Cutolo had founded the 'New Camorra Organisation' (NCO), with a band of capos around him who were to forge criminal enterprises and serve their commander on release from prison.He lived in luxury with a cell all to himself, he was allowed to use the governor's phone to call anywhere in the world, and his chef and accountant lived in the room next door.He's even rumoured to have once slapped the governor of the Poggioreale prison around the face for daring to search his cell.The don befriended younger prisoners, providing them with protection, a sense of belonging and worth, which added to his ever-expanding network.Such was their loyalty that they sent money concealed in bouquets of flowers and Catulo would use the funds on the inside to gain more influence.For example, he bought food for poorer prisoners and thereby created 'debts' which he would ask to recompensed for – often with blood – when they were released.Catulo established a unique ideology, which some have even described as a 'death cult', which argued that 'the value of life doesn't consist of its length but in the use made of it.' He wrote a book called Poesie e pensieri (thoughts and poems) which was widely distributed throughout Campania and known as the 'Bible of the NCO.