CAMORRA GANG ON TRIAL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1069, 7 March 1911, Page 5

CAMORRA GANG ON TRIAL.

MURDERS IN NAPLES. CRIMINALS TRACKED FOR FIVE YEARS BY POLICE.

AN EXTRAORDINARY STORYBy Tolcernn'J -Press Assoilalion-CoDyrtcht. (Rec. March 7, 0.;)0 a.m.) London, March G. Renter's correspondent at Viterbo, Italy, tells an amazing story of tho Cuocolo murder of June, 100 G. (details of which were cabled on January S). The statements are based on the evidence of 450 witnesses. Cuocolo married a beauty of bad character, and the pair had the reputation of licing tho organisers of thefts on behalf of the Camorra, and also of occasionally acting as police spies. Cuocolo aroused tho enmity of Euraco Alfani, who, as a lad of twenty, had reorganised tho Neapolitan Camorra, until he controlled tho horso market, tho bands of smugglers, tho public sales, and tho dock employees. Alfani nursed his revenge for several years, and finally engaged sis desperadoes to murder Cuocolo, and also to mutilate his wife with au "S" cut in her abdomen, as indicative of the. Camorrft's supremo contempt for the failure of tho police to secure a conviction. Tho murders aroused protests from tho citizens, and the Government thereupon appointed Colonel Ramorino, a bravo and energetic Picdraontose, to trace all tho ramifications of the Camorra. Colonel Kamorino gradually traced Alfani's movements on tho night of the murder, and discovered his associates. Alfani fled to New York, where Lieut. Petrosino, of tho United States detective force, who was afterwards murdered by tho "Black Hand" at Palermo in 1909, discovered him. Extradition being impossible, Petrosino placed Alfani aboard a steamer, and he was arrested at Havre and taken to Italy. Colonel Ramorino secured the whole gang except one, who fled to Buenos Ayres. It is expected that tho trial will last a year.

Thirty-two Camorrists were recently in Viterbo Prison awaiting trial in connection with this murder. On Juno 5, 1906, a woman known to the Naples police as "La Sorrentine" was found lying dead in a pool of blood in her bedroom. The same day her husband's body was found on the seashore, hearing the marks of many stiletto wounds. After a lengthy inquiry, an informer camo forward and declared that this double crime was the work of the Camorra, which at a secret sitting had passed sentence of death upon the couple. The police, fearing that an attempt would bo made to rescue the prisoners, erected a large iron cage in the Court in which to place them during their trial. A smaller one was also fitted up for the protection of the ihformer, ngainst any attempt to murder him while ho was giving his evidence.