{{Short description|Italian female criminal (1937–2023)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2023}} {{Infobox criminal | name = Rosetta Cutolo | birth_date = {{birth date|1937|1|01|df=yes}} | birth_place = Ottaviano, Italy | death_date = {{death date and age|2023|10|14|1937|1|1|df=yes}} | death_place = Ottaviano, Italy | other_names = {{lang|nap|Uocchie 'e gghiaccio}} | allegiance = Nuova Camorra Organizzata | criminal_charge = Mafia association | conviction_penalty = Nine years imprisonment reduced to five years (1990) | relatives = Raffaele Cutolo (brother) }}
'''Rosetta Cutolo''' ({{IPA|it|roˈzetta ˈkuːtolo}}; 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.<ref name=hay200>Haycraft, ''The Italian Labyrinth'', p. 200</ref> Her nickname was {{lang|nap|Uocchie 'e gghiaccio}}, meaning "ice eyes".
==Background== Rosetta, a grey-haired, pious-looking woman, lived alone for years with her mother in Ottaviano, near Naples, tending her roses.<ref name=gua160204>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/feb/16/gender.uk Fascinating felons], by Clare Longrigg, The Guardian, 16 February 2004</ref> 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.<ref name=longrigg12>Longrigg, ''Mafia Women'', pp. 12-16</ref>
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."<ref name=longrigg12/> She ruled in the headquarters of the NCO: the Castello 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.<ref name=hay200/><ref>[http://translate.google.co.in/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.crimeblog.it/tag/Nuova%2BCamorra%2BOrganizzata&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=10&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DNuova%2BCamorra%2BOrganizzata%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26pwst%3D1 Cutolo: Ottaviano to Sant' Anastasia]</ref>
==Fugitive== Brilliant with figures, Rosetta Cutolo negotiated with South American cocaine barons, narrowly failed to blow up police headquarters, and was glamourized in a film, ''The Professor''.<ref name=gua300600>[https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,,338148,00.html Italy's most wanted Mamma], The Guardian, 30 June 2000</ref> 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.<ref name=longrigg12/>
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.<ref name=dt190601>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/1344933/Godmother-sends-deadly-message-to-her-Mafia-rivals.html Godmother sends deadly message to her Mafia rivals], Daily Telegraph, 19 June 2001</ref> She was not seen in public thereafter for over 10 years, and directed operations from a series of safe houses in different cities.<ref name=longrigg12/>
==Arrest== In February 1993, she gave herself up after police found her hideout. Cutolo appeared at the entrance, saying "I am tired of being a fugitive".<ref name=ind090293>[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mafia-godmother-arrested-1471896.html Mafia 'Godmother' arrested], The Independent, 9 February 1993</ref> She had been sentenced in absentia in 1990 to nine years in prison on charges of Mafia association, later reduced to five years. Prosecutors alleged she had been running her brother's organisation. She was acquitted on nine murder charges. Rosetta had persuaded the authorities she was harmless, and her frumpy image definitely helped.<ref name=gua160204/>
Her brother Raffaele Cutolo always maintained that Rosetta knew nothing of his criminal activities and did only what he asked: "Rosetta has never been a Camorrista... She only listened to me and sent me a few suitcases of money to prisoners like I told her to". Nevertheless, it is clear that Cutolo had always wanted to maintain a male-only organization based on principles such as criminal fraternity, and so he could never be seen giving a role to his sister. It could also be argued that he simply did not want to implicate her and therefore, always insisted that she was innocent.<ref name=fiandaca13/>
==Role in NCO== Many important members did not believe that she held an important role because she was a woman. For instance, former NCO lieutenant and ''pentito'' Pasquale Barra argued: "What has Rosa Cutolo got to do with it? What have woman got to do with the Camorra?".<ref name=fiandaca13>Doing It for Themselves or Standing In for Their Men? Women in the Neapolitan Camorra (1950-2003), by Felia Allum, in: Fiandaca, ''Women and the Mafia'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=KJLBLxYBUysC&q=cutolo&pg=PA13 Google print p. 13]</ref>
However, according to prosecutor Antonio Laudati, who questioned Cutolo many times, his sister was the true force behind the NCO: "Her brother has always been under the power of her forceful personality. He's been in prison for 30 years; during that time she became director of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata in her own right."<ref name=longrigg12/>
==Death== Rosetta Cutolo died on 14 October 2023, at the age of 86.<ref>{{cite news |title=È morta Rosetta Cutolo, sorella dell'ex boss di Ottaviano |url=https://www.ilroma.net/news/cronaca/morta-rosetta-cutolo-sorella-dellex-boss-di-ottaviano |access-date=14 October 2023 |publisher=Roma |date=14 October 2023}}</ref>
==Notes== {{reflist}}
==References== * Haycraft, John (1985). ''The Italian Labyrinth: Italy in the 1980s'', London: Secker & Warburg * Longrigg, Clare (1998). ''Mafia Women'', London: Vintage {{ISBN|0-09-959171-5}}
==Further reading== * Fiandaca, Giovanni (ed.) (2007), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=KJLBLxYBUysC Women and the Mafia: Female Roles in Organized Crime Structures]'', New York: Springer {{ISBN|0-387-36537-0}} * {{cite book |last= Nadeau |first= Barbie Latza |year=2022 |title= The Godmother: Murder, Vengeance, and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women |location= New York |publisher= Penguin Books |type= Paperback |isbn= 978-0143136118}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cutolo, Rosetta}} Category:1937 births Category:2023 deaths Category:Camorristi Category:Fugitives wanted by Italy Category:Italian prisoners and detainees Category:Italian female gangsters Category:Italian gangsters Category:Nuova Camorra Organizzata Category:People acquitted of murder Category:People from the Metropolitan City of Naples Category:Prisoners and detainees of Italy