News: The Camorra; & Cosa Nostra

***  Nigerian gangsters are muscling in on the turf of the Camorra or Neapolitan Mafia:

Nigerian gangsters have made Castel Volturno a European headquarters. In the 1990s, demand boomed here for African prostitutes -- prosecutors call it "the Naomi Campbell phenomenon." Camorra clans "rented" turf to Nigerian pimps, a line of work that Neapolitan gangsters disdain. And as cocaine flows increasingly to Europe through West Africa, Nigerians have graduated from their previous role as smuggling "mules" and pay the Camorra for a cut of street trafficking action. "The Camorra worked well with the Nigerians at first," said Antonio Laudati, a top Justice Ministry official who led a major prosecution of the Nigerian mafia last year. "They were low-cost labor. They were well-received because they were cheap and very loyal. But then the Nigerians started to rise to a new level."

Needless to say, the Camorra are fighting back against the interlopers:  "During the last year, they embarked on a punitive campaign against Italian turncoats and foreign rivals, killing nine people."

***  Carlo Vizzini, a member of Italy's parliamentary anti-Mafia commission, takes issue with prosecutors who have declined to investigate members of fan club pages which celebrate the crimes of notorious Cosa Nostra bosses on the social networking site Facebook:

Thousands of people have signed up to fan club pages dedicated to jailed Cosa Nostra superbosses Salvatore (Toto) Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. Reacting to a statement from Palermo public prosecutor's office that it will not investigate mafioso pages because they are not a criminal offence, Vizzini said that user's personal details should still be collected before Facebook is asked to remove the pages. ''With the exception of a small minority of macabre pranksters, these people represent potential mobsters,'' said Vizzini . . . .  ''They belong to the so-called grey zone of people willing to support the bosses and the Mafia.'' Police said they were monitoring the site but explained that the only law governing opinions expressed on the Internet related to race discrimination and Fascism. People who join online fan clubs dedicated to Mafia bosses are therefore immune from prosecution, as are those who signed up to serial killer fan sites, they said.

Relatives of those who have been murdered by the Sicilian Mafia are denouncing the fan club pages.