The mother of godmothers, Antonietta Bagarella, wife of Salvatore Riina, sister of Leoluca. The women are the ones who keep the lines of communication open between imprisoned male bosses and the clan, and in so doing may earn themselves the honorary title of "sorella d'omertà" or a "sister" of the mafia code of silence.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/0ooAAOSw76xmObou/s-l1600.webp

Maria Serraino

One of the rare examples of a woman leading a 'Ndrangheta clan.

Rosetta Cutolo (Italian pronunciation: [ro?zetta ?ku?tolo]; 1 January 1937 – 14 October 2023) was an Italian criminal and the sister of the Camorra boss Raffaele Cutolo, head of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO), an organisation he built to renew the Camorra. As her brother 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.[1] Her nickname was Uocchie 'e gghiaccio, meaning "ice eyes".

Erminia (Celeste) Giuliano, a former female member of the Giuliano Clan of the dreaded Napolitani Camorra.

Good pick NYM.

Thanks, Hollander. Here's another...

Nella Serpa, aka; “La Blonde” (The Blonde) became a top figure in the Calabrian N’drangheta’s “Serpa Clan” following the murder of her brother Pietro Serpa. He became their clan’s next boss.

Raffaela D’Alterio, aka; “Il Miciona” (The Big Female Kitchen) was an important Camorra member and future boss. She gained much of her power as the wife of Nicola Pianese, another former Camorra boss who was murdered gangland style, raising to power after her husband’s murder.

Giuseppa Vitale (born in Partinico, 1972), better known as Giusy, is the sister of Mafia bosses Leonardo, Michele and Vito Vitale from Partinico, Sicily. Giusy took over the command over the clan when her brothers were in prison or fugitives, despite the formal Mafia rule that excludes the participation of women in the criminal organisation.[1] As such she was considered one of a new breed of 'bosses in skirts'.[2] Later she became a pentita, a state witness breaking the "omertà," or code of silence, testifying against her own family.

“Giusy Vitale – it was explained – was guilty of murders and, moreover, while her brothers were in prison she was the regent of the Partinico district. Roles that have often been underestimated by judges, because they are still tied to an old image of the mafia, which instead evolves in step with civil society, using its women for roles of greater importance than in the past”.

https://www.partinicolive.it/photog...all-interno-della-mafia-64457.large.webp

Patrizia Messina Denaro, is the daughter and sister of two of the Trapani Province of Sicily’s most notorious and powerful Mafia bosses. For many years, her brother Matteo Messina Denaro arguably became the most noted and widely publicized Cosa Nostra boss on the run and wanted by the Italian authorities.

After Patrizia's arrest and and subsequent imprisonment in 2013, another sister, Rosalia Messina Denaro, assumed control of their family’s “Messina Denaro criminal activities.

Another woman who came to power within the Naples Camorra was Anna DeLuca Bossa, a blood member and active participant in the city’s so-called “DeLuca-Bossa Clan.”

Maria Angela Di Trapani, daughter of “Don” Ciccio Di Trapani. She married Salvino Madonia, a high-ranked member of the Palermo Mafia. After Madonia’s imprisonment, Maria assumed a managerial role over her husband’s Cosa Nostra operations.

This article is more than 8 years old
Italian police arrest dozens of Mafia suspects from female-led 'Prickly Pear Lips' gang
More than 500 officers took part in raid on Laudini clan in Sicilian port of Catania after heir told police about ‘three queens of Caltagirone’

Agence France-Presse
Wed 10 Feb 2016 21.36 CET

Italian police have arrested dozens of suspected Mafia members in an international operation to dismantle a powerful Sicilian crime group run by women.

Over 500 officers took part in the raid on the Laudani clan in the Sicilian port of Catania, nicknamed “Mussi di ficurinia” (“Prickly pear lips”), in a sting that also involved forces in Germany and the Netherlands, Italian police told AFP.

Three women, known as the three queens of Caltagirone, a town near Catania, had ruled the clan with an iron grip as well as governing all financial matters but were brought down by the heir to the clan who began helping police.

The suspects were all wanted for Mafia association, extortion, drug trafficking and possessing illegal arms.

Of 109 arrest warrants issued on Wednesday, 80 people were detained, 23 were already serving time in prison and six are still eluding capture, police said.

Italian authorities say Giuseppe Laudani was selected to run the clan when he was 17 after his Mafia boss father was killed but he turned to police and told how the three women, Maria Scuderi, 51, Concetta Scalisi, 60 and Paola Torrisi, 52, had raised him.

Known as “the prince”, he described a world of violence and vendettas, with the women building power after his aunt Concetta’s life was saved by his father during an attempted assassination at the end of the 1980s, Italian media reports said.

Torrisi, daughter of a mobster boss who used to manage the clan’s international drug trading, was still young when she began to organise couriers in the area around Mount Etna, the active volcano which dominates Catania.

Concetta Scalisi, one of the women who ran the Laudini Mafia clan, arrested in 2001.

More on Concetta.

Woman Mafia boss arrested
Frances Kennedy
Tuesday 13 April 1999 00:02 BST

SICILIAN POLICE arrested one of Italy's few female Mafia bosses yesterday as she was having breakfast in her home town near Catania.

Surprised in a friend's apartment, Concetta Scalisi, 45, did not lose her head. As members of the anti-Mafia squad told her she was under arrest, she smashed a glass and began slashing her stomach and hands with one of the shards. The aim of the well-dressed Sicilian matron, one of a handful of female mafiosi, was apparently to ensure she went to hospital rather than to Catania's high-security prison.

Ms Scalisi has been on the run since September. She is charged with belonging to Cosa Nostra and organising a triple murder. Unlike other women, who are increasingly active in what was once a male domain, she was not said to be simply passing on orders from a jailed husband or having Mafia properties put in her name.

"Concetta is the boss, the number one of the Scalisi clan," explained Enzo Montemagno, head of the Catania anti-Mafia squad. "She is brains of the organisation. It is one of the few cases in Italy where a woman is really running the show."

He described Ms Scalisi as a well turned out, conservatively dressed matron "whose expression made it clear she was not someone to be messed with".

Married with two adult children, Ms Scalisi grew up adoring her father, Antonino, the charismatic and powerful local boss. When he was shot dead in a Mafia vendetta in 1982, her brother Salvatore took over. When he, too, was killed five years later, she stepped in to reorganise the family. In deference to the Mafia's patriarchal traditions, she brought in two nephews - but she was the decision maker.

It was during this period that investigators say Ms Scalisi eliminated three "family" members who had stepped out of line - providing the weapons, a refuge and logistical support for the killers. She faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

When her nephews were arrested in 1997, Ms Scalisi reportedly took complete control of mob operations in the hill town of Adrano, with a population of 20,000, near Catania. That included loan sharking, drug dealing, extortion and controlling public works contracts. She also came into contact with her family's traditional allies, the clan of Nitto Santapaola, one of Sicily's most ruthless mobsters.

Ms Scalisi's arrest came after a difficult and frustrating undercover operation. "In a small town where the Scalisi can count on considerable support, it is not easy to trail or observe those close to Concetta without being noticed yourself," Mr Montemagno said.

Three times police thought they had her, only to burst into a building and find no trace. Yesterday morning at breakfast time, however, their painstaking work paid off.

One of the lesser known women, it is said she has very high contacts in ports all over Italy.

Maria Rosaria Campagna, partner of the Catania mafia boss relegated to 41 bis Turi Cappello, is said to have created a group of drug traffickers in Naples who had contacts with the Calabrian 'ndrine specialized in international cocaine trafficking. The "godmother", involved in the recent Penelope anti-mafia investigation of the Catania DDA, is said to have directed a criminal "association" of Camorra origin to Naples where she has lived for several years with her son who is said to have made agreements with the Calabrian traffickers. The name of Maria Teresa Campagna, partner of Turi Cappello and mother of one of his children, emerges from the "Gerry" operation carried out by the Catanzaro Guardia di Finanza. The investigation by the Catanzaro DDA has dismantled a criminal organization of the 'ndrangheta that was said to have been capable of importing three quintals of cocaine from South America. Some of the most dangerous Calabrian families of the 'ndrine were involved: Bellocco of Rosarno, Mole' – Piromalli of Gioia Tauro, Avignone and Paviglianiti of Taurianova.

The investigations led to the seizure of 300 kilograms of cocaine and approximately 17 kilograms of codeine at the port of Livorno (THE VIDEO). But in addition to the precious white powder, the suspects would have managed to obtain large profits from other types of drugs: such as marijuana, hashish and heroin. This is where Maria Rosaria Campagna comes into play, who would have had contacts with Rosario Arcuri, one of the key suspects in the operation of the Catanzaro Finance Police. The investigators describe him as a character "specialized in the purchase of cocaine to supply multiple criminal families, capable of establishing fundamental contacts useful for managing the entire journey of the drugs, from the producing country to the port of arrival". Arcuri, supported by his brother and son, over the years would have established solid collaborative relationships with the group of Neapolitan drug dealers led by the wife of the Catania mafia boss Turi Cappello.

The Gerry investigation by the Guardia di Finanza has repercussions in Sicily not only for Maria Campagna but also for the involvement of a professional from Reggio Calabria who actually works actively in Messina. This is a pediatrician, Pietro Bonaventura Zavattieri, who in addition to being a loyal customer of the drug cartel is said to have acted as a “financier”. He is said to have attempted to invest money (but without success) in the purchase of large quantities of drugs.

Immacolata Iacone, aka; Jacone, the wife of Camorra boss Raffaele Cutolo. I believe she was also involved helping her husband as well.

My favorite will always be Pupetta she is an icon !

Maria Licciardi aka; “La Madrina” (The GodmotherRosetta Cutolo, the sister of Camorra boss, Raffaele Cutolo, and herself who became a top-ranked “mafiosetta” and Camorra leader who took over her brother’s organization after he was imprisoned.

Using the word 'icon' to describe a mafia figure is something I would refrain from doing, but I can understand it from a perspective of someone who admires murderers and extortionists

By few standards of measure could Pupetta be described as a good person. She was involved in a criminal industry that ruins thousands of lives each year. But she was smart, courageous in ways both good and bad, and an exceptional self-made woman loved by many in spite of her obvious flaws. She was incredibly loyal to the Camorra, a doting parent (if you don’t count not avenging the murder of her son), a dutiful wife (if helping commit murder defines that), and a role model to hundreds of mafia women who have followed her. And even though I know that I should not, I can’t help but admire how she — like many women in Italy — managed to find her way around all the obstacles in this male-driven society and come out on top.

From “The Godmother,” by Barbie Latza Nadeau, published by Penguin Books, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2022 by Barbie Latza Nadeau.

https://www.rollingstone.com/cultur...afia-murderess-barbie-nadeau-1234586431/

That's a cheap shot at Hollander. She is an icon in that world, drop that crap about people "admiring extortionists" or worshipping murder.

According to Barbie Latza Nadeau, she was incredibly loyal to the Camorra. The Camorra!! One of Italy's most violent criminal organizations lol. Seriously, how many good people has that organization harmed over the years?

Nadeau then continues, making my point for me by stating, "And even though I know that I should not, I can’t help but admire.." So, she knowingly goes against her better judgment lol

I suppose I've grown up H. At this point in my life, I just can't see any upside to praising people from that world