The son of a powerful Naples mafia boss, who once renounced his criminal roots, has been arrested alongside his father on alleged extortion charges.
In 2019, 28-year-old Antonio Piccirillo broke the Italian mafia’s code of silence to expose the actions of the Camorra group, one of Italy’s oldest and largest criminal organisations that his family has been part of for generations.
His arrest now raises questions about whether his anti-mafia campaign was merely a front, as investigators accuse Antonio and his father of making extortion demands on business owners who manage boat moorings in Mergellina, Naples.
Antonio allegedly posed as his father’s emissary while demanding thousands of euros.
The investigation that led to his arrest began after Italian TikToker Rita De Crescenzo, whose husband managed a mooring, reportedly received and reported death threats from the father-son duo.
Antonio Piccirillo (pictured), the son of a powerful Naples mafia boss who once distanced himself from his criminal roots, has been arrested along with his father for possible extortion
His arrest now raises questions about whether his campaign against the Mafia was just a facade, as investigators accuse Antonio and his father of making extortion demands on business owners who
“If you’re going to file a complaint, make sure they write that there are two of us who want to kill you: me and my father,” Antonio is said to have told them.
Rosario, one of the bosses of the Torretta Camorra clan, was last jailed in 2022 for extortion and usury.
But by then, Antonio had reportedly turned his back on his father after a four-year-old boy was injured by a stray bullet during a shooting in a Naples square in 2019.
After the tragic incident, he attended an anti-mafia protest where he grabbed a megaphone and told the crowd: “My name is Antonio Piccirillo. I am the son of Rosario Piccirillo, who made many mistakes in his life and was a member of the Italian Camorra mafia.
“Always love your parents, but distance yourself from their lifestyle, because it leads nowhere and only causes suffering.”
He then began regularly attending anti-mafia protests, where he condemned the Camorra organized crime group as a “mountain of shit.”
In 2021, he even ran for council in the local elections, but only received a few hundred votes.
Antonio once told Spanish newspaper El Pais that his biggest regret was not having spoken out earlier.
Antonio and his father for making extortion demands on business owners who manage boat moorings in Mergellina, Naples
The recent arrest of the 28-year-old and his father comes after Camorra assassins shot dead an engineer in Naples earlier this year after he exposed the violence in the Italian mafia’s construction industry.
Salvatore Coppola, 66, was shot in the face by his killers on March 12 in the car park of a Deco store, just metres from an Apple headquarters in San Giovanni a Teduccio.
The victim is believed to have had past ties to the mafia and had once been a white-collar criminal close to the Mazzarella clan – historically one of the Camorra’s most powerful groups.
But after he left the criminal organisation to cooperate with the justice system, police believe he was killed for breaking the mafia’s strict code of silence.
Coppola was attacked by the Camorra assassins on March 12, after which he fled – reportedly without leaving any witnesses.
The Camorra is known as one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating back to the seventh century.
They originated in the Campania region and came to power in the 19th century.
The Camorra’s organizational structure is divided into separate groups called ‘clans’ – of which there are an estimated 180.