Con "Demons" Abbate draws the map of criminal power in Rome

Before ‘Romanzo criminale’, a book by Giancarlo De Cataldo and then films and TV series, the criminal underworld in Rome in the collective imagination was considered only episodic, fragmented, represented by many neighborhood bosses who commanded limited areas, if not actual districts. After the magistrate’s book told a different story, of organized crime also in the Capital, everything changed and today everyone is very clear that there is an organization in Rome too which holds criminal power, also made up of dark ties with politics (and the Church). However, in Rome there has never actually been an organization similar to the mafia ones in the South. Over the years, in fact, the so-called ‘masters of Rome’, born or arrived from outside the city (or outside Italy) after the end of the Magliana gang, have divided the control of large areas of the city. To the point that it has been possible to draw a map of the criminal power in the Capital.

Telling the dark side of Rome at gunpoint is Lirio Abbate, Sicilian journalist and expert on the mafia which for some years has been carrying out important investigations into Roman crime. Today Abbate publishes ‘Demons – Drugs, Business and Blood, the Map of Power in the Capital’(Ed. Rizzoli, 253 pages – Price: 18.50 euro) in which he introduces readers to the main protagonists – the latest in chronological order – of the Roman organised crime scene. Starting with the Camorra boss Michael Senesein Rome since the early 80s and for decades (and probably still today) the true ‘King of Rome’, the boss who controls everything and commands everything.

The man who endorsed, if not even ordered in 2019, the murder of his former protégé, the boss of Rome North Fabrizio Piscitelli known as Diabolikprobably considered too ambitious and independent. It is not known whether he ordered it, but without his consent and, moreover, in the area under his control, the Appio, no one would have dared to commit that crime. Michele Senese, known as “‘o pazzo” because he goes up and down the hospital and psychiatric clinics thanks to false medical certificates (but he is currently in prison) is the first of Lirio Abbate’s ‘demons’. A violent, intelligent boss capable of managing and laundering money, sent to the Capital by the Camorra and capable of creating an empire and surviving everything, becoming ‘zio Michelè the true master of Rome.

He is the real ‘godfather’, capable of managing even from prison, through his family (his son Vincenzo – currently in prison – his daughter Santina, his wife Raffaella Gaglione and his son’s partner Elena Pasqua Esposito), drug dealing and criminal activities in the Tuscolano, Appio, Casilino and Cinecittà districts. But Rome is big, it also includes Ostia and the Castelli Romani. And there have been and are many ‘demons’. Starting with Senese’s lieutenants who later also became bosses, but always ‘subjects’ of the Neapolitan boss’s family: Leandro Bennato (he commands with the Gambacurta family in Bravetta and Primavalle and with the Domizi family in the Ottavia and Cassia districts) and Giuseppe Molisso (Tor Bella Monaca). Then there are the others, those not directly linked to Michele Senese, but equally respectful of his power. There was Diabolik, Fabrizio Piscitelli. Founder of the Irreduciblea fringe of Lazio supporters who monopolized the cheering in the Curva Nord, who took on an increasingly important role in North Rome, managing drug dealing and effectively ruling in the ‘good’ areas of the capital (Tor di Quinto, Parioli, Flaminio). He and his partner Fabrizio Fabietti (who rules, or used to rule since he is now in prison, in Tiburtino and Collatino) enjoyed great prestige and were protected by Michele Senese. When someone decided to kill Diabolik, however, the Neapolitan boss gave permission, a sign that something had broken and that Piscitelli was taking too much power.

Among the ‘demons’, Diabolik, about whom much has been written, is not the only well-known name. There are the Casamonica with Romanina and the Spada in Ostia, then there is Salvatore Nicitra at Tomba di Nerone, Enrico Nicoletti (ex Banda della Magliana) at Eur and the Albanians with Elvis Demce aka Spartacus in Velletri.

The latter, to whom Abbate dedicates an entire chapter, is an ambitious, extremely violent and unscrupulous young man, a friend of Piscitelli and Fabietti and eager to avenge Diabolik, who has come to clash with other Roman bosses, but who is also fearful of the power of ‘uncle Michelè’, that is, Michele Senese.

The last known name is that of Massimo Carminati, protagonist of the news for the investigation ‘Mafia Capitale’ which, compared to the years to which the investigation refers, has lost a lot of power (in reality, Abbate writes, “he was a ‘problem solver’ rather than a commander of an army”).
In ‘Demons’ Abbate then tells how the basis for the defeat of many of these bosses was an error and a certainty that proved to be fallacious: they all used a system of cryptophones, cell phones on which an App was installed, SkyEcc (Elliptic-curve cryptography), which allowed them to send encrypted messages, including videos and photos, in a secure manner because it was thought impossible to intercept them. A system that had a rather high cost: a cell phone with SkyEcc installed cost 1200 euros plus another 700 euros for a six-month subscription. A system considered infallible ‘pierced’ in 2021 by the joint action of the Belgian, Dutch and French police coordinated by Europol which allowed access to the SkyEcc platform revealing millions of chats from 170 thousand users around the world.

Today many bosses have been arrested, but their power continues even from captivity because, Abbate writes, “the bosses have been able to take advantage of the fair concessions provided by the codes for those suffering from mental disorders or drug addiction. Or simply the spaces of freedom that are allowed by precautionary regimes less strict than prison confinement”. But Rome also has another peculiarity: the bosses are pawns in a tried and tested mechanism. If one is missed, another immediately arrives and the control zone always remains under a boss.

“For every partnership that is dismantled,” he writes, “there is a new group ready to step forward and take over the business by putting its own men to work. For every space that is left empty, there is an aspiring boss ready to occupy it.”
At the end of ‘Demons’ Lirio Abbate describes a possible scenario that has been scaring investigators lately. It is a working hypothesis, but it could become a nightmare: the Roman underworld – including mafiosi and drug traffickers – could ally with international terrorists. “A terrifying possibility looms over the future,” the journalist writes, “other demons, with so much money and resources at their disposal, ready to spread terror by inaugurating a new strategy of tension.”