Rosetta Cutolo

Rosetta Cutolo (born in 1937) is the sister of the notorious Camorra boss Raffaele Cutolo, the head of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO), an organisation he built to renew the Camorra. As Cutolo spent most of his time behind bars from where he sent out his instructions, the everyday running of the enterprise was entrusted to his older sister Rosetta. Her nickname was "Occh'egghiaccio", meaning Ice Eyes.

Rosetta, a grey-haired, pious-looking woman, lived alone for years with her mother in Ottaviano near Naples, tending her roses. She was the power behind her brother for over 15 years, passing on his orders from jail and cultivating his devoted followers outside. Without her the NCO would have collapsed, according to a resident from Ottaviano.

While her megalomaniacal brother created scandal by giving interviews and making speeches in the courtroom, Rosetta kept a low profile. She had a love-hate relationship with her brother. According to their lawyer Paolo Trofino, they had a stormy relationship: “They often have rows. She thinks he talks too much. She wishes he wouldn’t give interviews.” She ruled in the headquarters of the NCO: the Castle Mediceo, a vast 16th-century palace with 365 rooms and a large park with tennis courts and swimming pool. The castle was bought for several billion lire at the time and provided direct contact for Cutolo from the prisons of Poggioreale and Ascoli Piceno.

Brilliant with figures, Rosetta Cutolo negotiated with South American cocaine barons, narrowly failed to blow up police headquarters and was glamourised in a film, Il Camorrista. She participated in a high-level meeting with representatives of the Sicilian Mafia and Camorra clans to try to put an end to the bloody war between the NCO and their rivals from the Nuova Famiglia, together with Cutolo’s right-hand man Vincenzo Casillo.

In October 1981, police raided her stronghold while she was presiding over a meeting of the NCO. Cutolo escaped under a rug in a car driven past checkpoints by the neighbourhood priest. She was not seen in public thereafter for over 10 years, and directed operations from a series of safe houses in different cities.

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Wikipedia