MADRID — Neapolitan gangsters, including the alleged fugitive boss captured Saturday night in the city of Marbella, have a name for Spain: La Costa Nostra, or Our Coast.
The term plays off Cosa Nostra, or Our Thing, as the mafia is called, and underscores what authorities say: that Spain has become a top foreign base for the Naples underworld, the Camorra, in the last decade. Spanish police have arrested half a dozen suspected Neapolitan crime figures this year alone.
"They use that name Costa Nostra because it's like a second homeland for them," said Alessandro Pennasilico, an Italian prosecutor in Naples, in an interview. "They like Spain -- the climate, the coast, the beaches, because it's close to their culture. And the Camorra goes where there is business. Spain is an important country regarding the trafficking of drugs."
The nickname of purported boss Raffaele Amato is "the Spaniard." He partied in Marbella, a beachfront refuge of high-rolling international desperadoes and dubious fortunes. Investigators say he set up multinational cocaine deals in Barcelona. Moving among Spanish hide-outs, he allegedly waged a long-distance war for the housing projects in Naples that are the heart of his empire. And he speaks Spanish like a native.
Amato's capture Saturday was a major victory for Italian investigators. The balding 44-year-old gained notoriety for allegedly setting off a turf war with a rival clan between 2004 and 2007 that littered the high-rise slums of Naples with 70 bodies. The battle was retold in "Gomorra," a book by journalist Roberto Saviano, and in the recent film of the same name.
The Camorra's intense activity in Spain reveals evolving alliances and shifting global crime networks, investigators say. Starting about seven years ago, Amato was a key player in a number of decisive underworld sit-downs in Spain, the gateway for Latin American cocaine smuggled into Europe, said Antonio Laudati, a top official in Italy's Justice Ministry and former chief prosecutor in Naples.
Europe became an increasingly hot market for cocaine because of rising demand, a strong currency and the hardening of U.S. borders after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Laudati said in a telephone interview. The Neapolitans met with Latin American and Spanish gangsters to build new partnerships and develop the European market, he said.
