Italian authorities said that a well-known Naples criminal group leader was arrested while preparing to board a flight to Spain.
The Minister of the Interior Luciana Lamorgese praised the Naples prosecutor for ordering Carabinieri officials to arrest 70-year-old Maria Licciardi.
The police of the special operations unit of the paramilitary gendarmerie that carried out the arrest could not immediately provide detailed information. However, the press office of the Gendarmerie issued a message from the Italian news agency ANSA, stating that Liciardi was arrested while checking luggage at Rome Ciampino Airport and preparing to fly to Spain.
Investigators accused Licciardi of extortion as the leader of the Licciardi Camorra criminal group.
“When the police stopped her and served the arrest warrant signed by the Naples Prosecutor’s Office, she did not blink,” ANSA said.
In 2001, when she was first arrested after being stopped while driving near Naples, Licciardi was among the top 30 most wanted fugitives in Italy. In 2009, she was released after serving a sentence for crimes related to the Mafia.
Nicknamed by the mob “little girl” Prosecutors said that because of her petite stature, Licciardi was one of the victors of a long-term blood feud between the tribal alliances, which caused Naples to scatter corpses almost every day in the early part of this century.
The Naples prosecutor described Liciardi as a real “Godmother“(Godmother) is in the Camorra group. The prosecutor said that her brother is a tribal leader, and she and other tribal leaders make decisions for the criminal family.
Extortion by local business owners, drug trafficking and infiltration of public works contracts are traditional sources of illegal income for Naples-based Camora (one of Italy’s major criminal groups).
