Actually, they are shadow plants, prefer to act in secret. Where they can go about their business undisturbed: extortion, drug trafficking, murder. The underground is the stage of the Italian mafia – at least it used to be. Because the new generation of mafiosi doesn’t seem to think too much of their criminal ancestors’ hide-and-seek. The young gangsters put their criminal lives on display – and of all places on the social media platform TikTok.
The accessories: fat carts, designer clothes, attack dogs and lots of champagne. What Crescenzo Marino presents to his followers resembles the poses known from rap culture. Only Marino is not a chart breaker but a lawbreaker, at least he belongs to a family of such. He is the son of a notorious Camorra boss. The Camorra is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy. Main scene of their activities is Naples.
Marino primarily wears thick pants on his channel. With success. He gets a lot of attention for his swagger. More than 43,000 people follow him, watch the short videos that show him playing with his attack dogs or making the streets of Paris unsafe in a Ferrari. Relatively harmless boasting, nothing more. But the Camorra now also uses the video platform as a means of communication, announcing there when a vendetta, i.e. a revenge campaign, is planned. Newly formed alliances are also made public in this way. And so the association gradually develops into Camorra 2.0.
Among other things, they are said to have used the platform to put pressure on the Italian police after a murder. “We’ll give you a week to arrest them or we’ll give them hell,” the message said. That the mafiosi communicate so publicly is new. Speaking to The Times, mafia expert Marcello Ravveduto said: “For the first time, these gangsters have found a direct way to talk about their lives.”
In May 2020, the song “Sì Sto’ Carcerato” made the rounds on TikTok. The title means something like: Yes, I’m in prison. What was interesting about it wasn’t the song itself, but rather where it was filmed. Tommy Riccio recorded the good piece in a high-security prison near Naples, which is known for the fact that there are many young men who belong to the Camorra. He used a mobile phone that had been smuggled into the cell. Vice Italy reported. The clip has since been deleted from the platform. More videos with weapons, drugs and other questionable content continue to circulate. The young mafiosi do exactly what the older ones traditionally tried to avoid: they let the world participate in their deeds as a matter of course, snub it in the limelight.
Their display via short video service therefore also serves to draw the attention of those in higher positions. It works, wrote the “Vice”, like a kind of audition for positions of power and leadership. Incidentally, the criminal clans in Italy are not the only ones using TikTok for such actions. As the “DailyMail” reports, they copied this from the Mexican narcos.
Those: Guardian, Times, Vice
