Francesco Schiavone

Francesco Schiavone
Schiavone at his arrest in July 1998
Born	(1953-01-06) January 6, 1953 (age 64) Casal di Principe, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Other names	Sandokan
Allegiance	Casalesi clan / Camorra

Francesco Schiavone (born January 6, 1953) is a member of the Camorra, the Neapolitan organized crime syndicate, and the head of the Casalesi clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta. He has been dubbed Sandokan after a popular 1970s television series starring Kabir Bedi because of his thick, dark beard.

He started his criminal career as a driver and bodyguard of Umberto Ammaturo. His first arrest was in 1972, when he was just 18 years old, for illegal possession of firearms. Schiavone was involved in several bloody clan wars of the Camorra in which dozens of people were killed in the Naples area in the past decades. He sided with Antonio Bardellino – the founder of the Casalesi clan and prominent leader of the Nuova Famiglia – and Mario Iovine against the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO) of Raffaele Cutolo. When the NCO was defeated, an internal feud broke out between Bardellino and Iovine. Schiavone, together with Francesco Bidognetti and Vincenzo Di Falco sided with Iovine.

A new feud broke out between the Di Falco clan and Iovine and Schiavone. Di Falco allegedly betrayed Schiavone’s right-hand man Francesco Bidognetti, who was arrested in December 1990. Vincenzo Di Falco was subsequently killed in February 1991, in Casal di Principe. In retaliation Nunzio Di Falco killed Mario Iovine on March 6, 1991, in Portugal. Schiavone was arrested on April 25, 1991. While in custody the Di Falco clan was defeated. As the old bosses, such as Bardellino and Iovine, and potential younger leaders like Bidognetti and De Falco disappeared, he became the boss of the clan in the 1990s, being the strongest and most cunning of his generation.

In 1993, after ending a three-year jail term, Schiavone disappeared before judges could put him under surveillance. The Schiavone-Bidognetti clan now firmly led the Casalesi clan. After more than five years on the run, he was arrested on July 11, 1998, in his hideout – a secret apartment behind a sliding wall of granite in his Naples villa, equipped with high tech tools. At the time he was considered to be the Camorra’s "number one" fugitive.