Maria Licciardi

Maria Licciardi (born 24 March 1951) is an Italian criminal affiliated with the Camorra, head of the Licciardi clan, and one of the bosses of the Secondigliano Alliance.

She was one of the most powerful bosses of the Camorra in the city of Naples from 1993 until her arrest in 2001.

Licciardi was referred to as La Madrina ("The Godmother") by fellow Camorristi and earned the nickname La Piccolina ("The Little Girl") early on in her criminal career, due to her diminutive height.

Among Camorra women she is known respectfully as La Principessa ("The Princess"), due to her good standing.

Licciardi was born and raised in the Neapolitan suburb of Secondigliano, a traditional stronghold of the Licciardi clan.

Her entire family belonged to the Camorra.

Her father was a well-known guappo or local boss.

One of her brothers, Gennaro Licciardi known as "'a Scigna" (The Monkey) was a very powerful guappo, who later became the head of the clan and a founding member of the Secondigliano Alliance (Italian: Alleanza di Secondigliano), a coalition of powerful Camorra clans which controlled drug trafficking and the extortion rackets in many suburbs of Naples.

Gennaro died from blood poisoning while in the Voghera prison on August 3, 1994.

Licciardi's husband, Antonio Teghemié was also in the Camorra.

Licciardi rose to power and took over as head of the clan, after her two brothers, Pietro and Vincenzo, and her husband were arrested.

She was the first female Camorrista to become the boss of the Licciardi clan, and take over as head of the Secondigliano Alliance.

The death of Gennaro Licciardi caused some disruption in the local underworld, as well as several bloody attempts to seize control, but the clan was kept in stable condition by Maria.

She brought together a fragile informal coalition of twenty Camorra clans in order to expand control of the city's most lucrative rackets, from drugs and cigarette smuggling to protection and prostitution.

She also played a key role in expanding the city's drug trade market.

Under her leadership, the Secondigliano Alliance become more organized, secretive, sophisticated and consequently more powerful.

Licciardi introduced many revolutionary changes to the clan.

Perhaps the most important among them was the involvement in the prostitution trade.

Prior to this, the Camorra had a code of conduct that forbade them from making money from prostitution.

However, under Licciardi this code was broken.

The Camorra would buy the girls from the Albanian mafia for US$2,000.

Many of them came on the promise of legitimate work in order to escape the crushing poverty of their homeland, but once they arrived, they were practically enslaved and forced into prostitution by the Camorra.

Many such girls were underage.

They were often put on drugs.

This helped increase criminal activity, as they usually spent a large part of their income purchasing narcotics for consumption.

Unlike many male Camorristi, Licciardi shunned the limelight and was never convicted or even suspected of any crime.

One well-connected insider described her as radiating a steely charisma.

According to police sources, she was reputed to be practical, charming, exceptionally intelligent, but just as ruthless as her male counterparts.

She carried a cold and calculating approach in her criminal endeavors, reportedly taking her inspiration from Rosetta Cutolo, sister of Raffaele Cutolo, the boss of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata.

Under her, the Licciardi clan generated a great amount of goodwill among the local populace as it continued the old habit of giving an occasional handout to the neighborhood's poor.

In Secondigliano, with no social security benefits provided to the people by the local government and an endemic unemployment rate, the clan provided the neighbourhood with a principal source of employment.

When the pentito Gaetano Guida was asked in court about the role of Maria Licciardi and women in the Secondigliano Alliance, he replied:

Lucia Licciardi, no relation to Maria, was the only journalist to get access to her inner circle.

In an interview, she described her management style as follows: "She behaves just like the manager of a multinational. She always looks for a solution that's less likely to attract police attention and that creates fewer splits within the clan."

On Maria Licciardi, Judge Luigi Bobbio stated that: "The moment a woman takes charge of the organisation, paradoxically, we witness a lowering of the emotional level and a better performance of the group's activities."

Maria Licciardi sought to control the possible impact of the testimonies of many pentiti in order to protect the clan.

For instance, Italian police discovered that a few days after his escape from his protected location, pentito Constantino Saro met Licciardi in order to ask for money in return for retracting statement's on the clan's activities.

The Secondigliano Alliance was divided over this issue.

Some wanted to pay him, others wanted to pay him, and then murder him and his family.

On January, 1998, Maria Licciardi was stopped in a car with her sister, Assunta, and her sister-in-law with around 300 million lire, which the prosecutors believe was her purported payment to him.