Michele Zaza
Encyclopedia
Michele Zaza was a member of the Neapolitan
Camorra
who was also initiated in the Sicilian
Mafia
. He was known as "’O Pazzo" (the madman) due to his outspoken and improbable public pronouncements. He was one of the first Camorristi to emerge as a powerful figure in the cigarette contraband industry.
) He grew up in the poor neighbourhood Portici
in Naples
and had his first brush with the law in 1961 when he was arrested for being involved in a street fight. By 1974 there was evidence that he had made a qualitative leap when he was arrested with some top Mafiosi Gerlando Alberti
, Stefano Bontade
and Rosario Riccobono
. Soon after that he was arrested in Palermo with Mafia boss Alfredo Bono for illegal possession of firearms.
Zaza was an extravagant and prolific cigarette smuggler through the port of Naples
. He once described his activities during questioning by an investigating magistrate:
is to Turin
. They have called me the Agnelli of Naples… Yes – it could all be eliminated in thirty minutes. And then those who work would be finished. They’d all become thieves, robbers, muggers. Naples would become the worst city in the world. Instead, this city should thank the twenty, thirty men who arrange for ships laden with cigarettes to be discharged and thus stop crime!” (The Agnelli referred to is Gianni Agnelli
, president of Fiat, the Turin-based car multinational)
Zaza became known as ‘the King of the blondes’, as cigarettes are called in slang, and ran a fully multinational operation together with his brother Salvatore. The two main tobacco
multinationals, Philip Morris
(Marlboro) and Reynolds (Camel
and Winston
), through concessionaires in Basel
, Switzerland, supplied the merchandise without much questions asked.
initiated Zaza into the Mafia family of Michele Greco
in 1974. The Neapolitan Camorra and their Sicilian partners were smuggling cigarettes by the shiploads. Zaza later admitted he was dealing in 50,000 cases of Marlboros a month.
Twice in 1977, Zaza was discovered in the company of several mafiosi, first at a restaurant with Vincenzo Spadaro and Filippo Messina, and again at a Social Democrat Party
branch in Naples, with Bernardo Brusca and Filippo Messina. According to the documents found in his possession, he was already selling 5000 tonnes of cigarettes per year.
Several Camorra and Mafia clans struck a deal on the division of the shiploads of contraband cigarettes at a meeting in 1974 in Marano
, the stronghold of Camorra boss Lorenzo Nuvoletta
. Zaza’s cunning helped him to slowly emerge from the shadow of his Mafia protectors. The Marano agreement between Sicilians and Neapolitans was wound up at a second Marano meeting in 1979, partly because Zaza had become uncontrollable. Mafia supergrass Tommaso Buscetta
remembered: “According to what Stefano Bontade told me, laughing, Michele Zaza used every trick in the book to unload his own cigarettes rather than those of the Palermo families.”
(NCO) under the leadership of Raffaele Cutolo
. The NCO type gangs which dealt mainly in cocaine and protection rackets, preserving a strong regional sense of identity, and the business-oriented gangs linked to the Mafia like Zaza’s organisation, who dealt in cigarettes and heroin, but soon moved on to invest in real estate and construction firms.
Cutolo’s NCO was becoming more powerful by encroaching and taking over other group’s territories. The NCO was able to break the circle of traditional power held by the families. Cutolo’s organisation was just too aggressive and violent to be resisted by any individual families. Other Camorra families initially were too weakened, too divided, and simply too intimidated by the NCO. He requested that if other criminal groups wanted to keep their business, they had to pay the NCO protection on all their activities, including a percentage for each carton of cigarettes smuggled into Naples. This practice came to be known as ICA (Imposta Camorra Aggiunta – or Camorristic Sale Tax), mimicking the state VAT sale tax IVA (Imposta sul Valore Aggiunto).
During the NCO’s highest point of expansion, Zaza had to pay Cutolo’s organisation US$400,000 for the right to carry on operating in contraband cigarettes. However, no hierarchy between Camorra gangs or stable spheres of influence had been created, and no gang leader was likely to agree to taking a back seat without making a fight of it. In 1978, Zaza formed a ‘honourable brotherhood’ (Onorata fratellanza) in an attempt to get the Mafia-aligned Camorra gangs to oppose Cutolo and his NCO, although without much success. A year later, in 1979, the Nuova Famiglia
was formed to contrast Cutolo’s NCO, consisting of Zaza, the Nuvoletta’s and Antonio Bardellino
from Casal Di Principe
(the Casalesi clan
). From 1980-1983 a bloody war raged in and around Naples, which left several hundred dead – and severely weakened the NCO.
case of the early 1980s, and his name came up in connection with a September 1982 Paris meeting with other Mafiosi in which a 600 kg package of cocaine held in Brazil was discussed. In 1982, with the DEA
on his tail, he allegedly was involved in importing 93 kg of heroin to his mansion in Beverly Hills in cooperation with Salamone. However, the DEA could not find the shipment. Zaza got his heroin supplies from the Corsican gangster Gaetan Zampa.
In 1982, with police raiding heroin refineries in Sicily and a raging Mafia war
, Zaza is rumoured to have set up a refinery on his own in the French city of Rouen
, with support of contacts from the old French Connection
days and the right tie-ins with the Sicilian Mafia, such as Giuseppe Bono in New York, Antonio Salamone
and the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan. He bought the premises worth $2 million. Zaza hoped to make between $20,000 and $32,000 a day profit until the plan was interrupted by his arrest.
On December 11, 1982, Zaza was arrested in Rome. Immediately his health deteriorated and cardiologists believed his situation alarming. He was placed under house arrest. On February 15, 1983, he received another arrest warrant in connection with the Italian end of the Pizza Connection
(with Giuseppe Bono and the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan as well as his father-in-law Giuseppe Liguori). However, Zaza, fled his house arrest in December 1983 and moved to Paris. There, he was arrested again on April 16, 1984, with Nunzio Barbarossa. He was again extradited to Italy. Due to his heart condition he again avoided prison.
, on the French side of the Franco-Italian border.
In July 1991, a French court sentenced him to three years for cigarette smuggling. Benefiting from a French law that facilitates the release of prisoners who already have served half their sentence, Zaza was released in November 1991, while Italian authorities asked for his extradition for Mafia association, drug trafficking and cigarette smuggling.
In May 1993, police dismantled a Cosa Nostra-Camorra ring of 39 people involved in cocaine trafficking and money laundering in Italy, France and Germany (Operation Green Sea). Zaza was arrested in Villeneuve-Loubet
on the French Riviera
near Nice
in Southern France
. He was extradited from France on March 27, 1994. On July 18, 1994, he died of a heart attack in a Rome hospital where he had been transferred from the Rebibbia prison.
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
Camorra
Camorra
The Camorra is a Mafia-type criminal organization, or secret society, originating in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating to the 18th century.-Background:...
who was also initiated in the Sicilian
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
. He was known as "’O Pazzo" (the madman) due to his outspoken and improbable public pronouncements. He was one of the first Camorristi to emerge as a powerful figure in the cigarette contraband industry.
Early career
The son of a fisherman from Procida (the smallest of the three islands in the Gulf of NaplesGulf of Naples
The Gulf of Naples is a c. 15 km wide gulf located in the south western coast of Italy, . It opens to the west into the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered on the north by the cities of Naples and Pozzuoli, on the east by Mount Vesuvius, and on the south by the Sorrentine Peninsula and the main...
) He grew up in the poor neighbourhood Portici
Portici
Portici is a town and comune of the Province of Naples in the Campania region of southern Italy. It is the site of the Portici Royal Palace.-Geography:...
in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
and had his first brush with the law in 1961 when he was arrested for being involved in a street fight. By 1974 there was evidence that he had made a qualitative leap when he was arrested with some top Mafiosi Gerlando Alberti
Gerlando Alberti
Gerlando Alberti , also known as "U Paccarè" is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He belongs to the Porta Nuova family in Palermo headed by Giuseppe Calò...
, Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He was the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo...
and Rosario Riccobono
Rosario Riccobono
Rosario Riccobono was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of Partanna Mondello, a suburb of Palermo, his native city...
. Soon after that he was arrested in Palermo with Mafia boss Alfredo Bono for illegal possession of firearms.
Zaza was an extravagant and prolific cigarette smuggler through the port of Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. He once described his activities during questioning by an investigating magistrate:
- “First I’d sell five cases of Philip MorrisPhilip Morris USAPhilip Morris USA is the United States tobacco division of Altria Group, Inc. Philip Morris USA brands include Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Benson and Hedges, Merit, Parliament, Alpine, Basic, Cambridge, Bucks, Dave's, Chesterfield, Collector's Choice, Commander, English Ovals, Lark, L&M, Players and...
, then ten, then a thousand, then three thousand, and I bought myself six or seven ships that you took away from me… I used to load fifty thousand cases a month… I could load a hundred thousand cases, US$10 million on thrust, all I had to do was make a phone call… I’d buy US$24 million worth of Philip Morris in three months. My lawyer will show you the receipts. I’m proud of that - US$24 million!”
King of the blondes
As the major Camorra cigarette smuggler of the 1970s and 1980s, Michele Zaza once said: “At least 700,000 people live off contraband, which is for Naples what FiatFiat
FIAT, an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino , is an Italian automobile manufacturer, engine manufacturer, financial, and industrial group based in Turin in the Italian region of Piedmont. Fiat was founded in 1899 by a group of investors including Giovanni Agnelli...
is to Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
. They have called me the Agnelli of Naples… Yes – it could all be eliminated in thirty minutes. And then those who work would be finished. They’d all become thieves, robbers, muggers. Naples would become the worst city in the world. Instead, this city should thank the twenty, thirty men who arrange for ships laden with cigarettes to be discharged and thus stop crime!” (The Agnelli referred to is Gianni Agnelli
Gianni Agnelli
Giovanni Agnelli , better known as Gianni Agnelli , was an Italian industrialist and principal shareholder of Fiat. As the head of Fiat, he controlled 4.4% of Italy's GDP, 3.1% of its industrial workforce, and 16.5% of its industrial investment in research...
, president of Fiat, the Turin-based car multinational)
Zaza became known as ‘the King of the blondes’, as cigarettes are called in slang, and ran a fully multinational operation together with his brother Salvatore. The two main tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
multinationals, Philip Morris
Philip Morris International
Philip Morris International is an international tobacco company, with products sold in over 160 countries. In 2007, it held a 15.6% share of the international cigarette market outside of the USA and reported revenues net of excise taxes of $22.8 billion and operating income of $8.9 billion.Until...
(Marlboro) and Reynolds (Camel
Camel (cigarette)
Camel is a brand of cigarettes that was introduced by American company R.J. Reynolds Tobacco in the summer of 1913. Most current Camel cigarettes contain a blend of Turkish tobacco and Virginia tobacco. Early in 2008 the blend was changed as was the package design.-History:In 1913, R.J...
and Winston
Winston (cigarette)
Winston cigarettes are manufactured by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company or its newer incarnation as RJR Nabisco and/or its affiliates.The brand was introduced in 1954, and became the best-selling brand of cigarettes in the United States...
), through concessionaires in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
, Switzerland, supplied the merchandise without much questions asked.
Initiated in Cosa Nostra
To secure their share in the thriving illicit industry the Sicilian MafiaMafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
initiated Zaza into the Mafia family of Michele Greco
Michele Greco
Michele Greco was a member of the Sicilian Mafia, previously incarcerated for multiple murders. His nickname was "il Papa" because of his ability to mediate between different Mafia families...
in 1974. The Neapolitan Camorra and their Sicilian partners were smuggling cigarettes by the shiploads. Zaza later admitted he was dealing in 50,000 cases of Marlboros a month.
Twice in 1977, Zaza was discovered in the company of several mafiosi, first at a restaurant with Vincenzo Spadaro and Filippo Messina, and again at a Social Democrat Party
Italian Democratic Socialist Party
The Italian Democratic Socialist Party is a minor social-democratic political party in Italy. Mimmo Magistro is the party leader. The PSDI, before the 1990s decline in votes and members, had been an important force in Italian politics, being the longest serving partner in government for Christian...
branch in Naples, with Bernardo Brusca and Filippo Messina. According to the documents found in his possession, he was already selling 5000 tonnes of cigarettes per year.
Several Camorra and Mafia clans struck a deal on the division of the shiploads of contraband cigarettes at a meeting in 1974 in Marano
Marano
Marano as a surname has noble Italian origin, derives from last name Marani of Vicenza that came to Naples in the 16th century with Francesco Antonio buried in the church of Sant'Antonelli to Caponapoli in the ancient center of Naples city...
, the stronghold of Camorra boss Lorenzo Nuvoletta
Lorenzo Nuvoletta
Lorenzo Nuvoletta was the head of the Nuvoletta clan, a Neapolitan Camorra organisation operating from the town of Marano di Napoli, situated on the northern outskirts of the city of Naples.-The Nuvoletta clan:...
. Zaza’s cunning helped him to slowly emerge from the shadow of his Mafia protectors. The Marano agreement between Sicilians and Neapolitans was wound up at a second Marano meeting in 1979, partly because Zaza had become uncontrollable. Mafia supergrass Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...
remembered: “According to what Stefano Bontade told me, laughing, Michele Zaza used every trick in the book to unload his own cigarettes rather than those of the Palermo families.”
Camorra war
At the end of the 1970s two different types of Camorra organisations were beginning to take shape. On the hand there was the Nuova Camorra OrganizzataNuova Camorra Organizzata
The Nuova Camorra Organizzata was an Italian Camorra criminal organization founded in the late 1970s by a Neapolitan Camorrista, Raffaele Cutolo, in the region of Campania. It was also known by the initials NCO...
(NCO) under the leadership of Raffaele Cutolo
Raffaele Cutolo
Raffaele Cutolo is an Italian crime boss and the charismatic leader of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata , an organisation he built to renew the Camorra. Cutolo has a variety of nicknames including "'o Vangelo" , "'o Principe" , "'o Professore" and "'o Monaco"...
. The NCO type gangs which dealt mainly in cocaine and protection rackets, preserving a strong regional sense of identity, and the business-oriented gangs linked to the Mafia like Zaza’s organisation, who dealt in cigarettes and heroin, but soon moved on to invest in real estate and construction firms.
Cutolo’s NCO was becoming more powerful by encroaching and taking over other group’s territories. The NCO was able to break the circle of traditional power held by the families. Cutolo’s organisation was just too aggressive and violent to be resisted by any individual families. Other Camorra families initially were too weakened, too divided, and simply too intimidated by the NCO. He requested that if other criminal groups wanted to keep their business, they had to pay the NCO protection on all their activities, including a percentage for each carton of cigarettes smuggled into Naples. This practice came to be known as ICA (Imposta Camorra Aggiunta – or Camorristic Sale Tax), mimicking the state VAT sale tax IVA (Imposta sul Valore Aggiunto).
During the NCO’s highest point of expansion, Zaza had to pay Cutolo’s organisation US$400,000 for the right to carry on operating in contraband cigarettes. However, no hierarchy between Camorra gangs or stable spheres of influence had been created, and no gang leader was likely to agree to taking a back seat without making a fight of it. In 1978, Zaza formed a ‘honourable brotherhood’ (Onorata fratellanza) in an attempt to get the Mafia-aligned Camorra gangs to oppose Cutolo and his NCO, although without much success. A year later, in 1979, the Nuova Famiglia
Nuova Famiglia
The Nuova Famiglia was an Italian Camorra criminal organization created in the 1980s to face Raffaele Cutolo's Nuova Camorra Organizzata....
was formed to contrast Cutolo’s NCO, consisting of Zaza, the Nuvoletta’s and Antonio Bardellino
Antonio Bardellino
Antonio Bardellino was a powerful Neapolitan Camorrista and boss of the Casalesi clan, having a prominent role in the organized crime in the province of Caserta during the 1980s...
from Casal Di Principe
Casal di Principe
Casal di Principe is a comune in the Province of Caserta in the Italian region Campania, located about 25 km northwest of Naples and about 20 km southwest of Caserta....
(the Casalesi clan
Casalesi clan
The Casalesi clan is a clan within the Camorra, an Italian criminal organization, operating from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta between Naples and Salerno.Formed by Antonio Bardellino, it is a confederation of clans in the Caserta area...
). From 1980-1983 a bloody war raged in and around Naples, which left several hundred dead – and severely weakened the NCO.
Drug trafficking
By that time Zaza had moved into drug trafficking as well. He was involved in the Pizza ConnectionPizza Connection Trial
The Pizza Connection Trial was one of the longest criminal jury trials on record in the district of Manhattan. It took place between October 24, 1985 and March 2, 1987-Scope of the trial:...
case of the early 1980s, and his name came up in connection with a September 1982 Paris meeting with other Mafiosi in which a 600 kg package of cocaine held in Brazil was discussed. In 1982, with the DEA
Drug Enforcement Administration
The Drug Enforcement Administration is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the United States...
on his tail, he allegedly was involved in importing 93 kg of heroin to his mansion in Beverly Hills in cooperation with Salamone. However, the DEA could not find the shipment. Zaza got his heroin supplies from the Corsican gangster Gaetan Zampa.
In 1982, with police raiding heroin refineries in Sicily and a raging Mafia war
Second Mafia War
The Second Mafia War was a conflict within the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place in the early 1980s. As with any criminal organization, the history of the Sicilian Mafia is replete with conflicts and power struggles, and the violence that results from them, but these are generally localised and...
, Zaza is rumoured to have set up a refinery on his own in the French city of Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
, with support of contacts from the old French Connection
French Connection
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Turkey to France and then to the United States. The operation reached its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it provided the vast majority of the illicit heroin used in the United States...
days and the right tie-ins with the Sicilian Mafia, such as Giuseppe Bono in New York, Antonio Salamone
Antonio Salamone
Antonio Salamone was a member of the Sicilian Mafia and a member of the first Sicilian Mafia Commission. His nickname was “il furbo” – the shrewd one.-Mafia heritage:...
and the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan. He bought the premises worth $2 million. Zaza hoped to make between $20,000 and $32,000 a day profit until the plan was interrupted by his arrest.
Immensely wealthy
Due to his illicit trafficking enterprises, Zaza became immensely wealthy. When he was arrested police found cheques worth US$950,000 in his pockets. By 1989 the US Treasury Department estimated his assets in the US alone were worth US$3.2 million. At the same time the FBI also estimated that he had US$15 million deposited in Swiss banks. For many years his daughter has been the official owner of a ten-bedroom villa in Beverly Hills, not to mention a Paris flat, a villa just outside Nice and several properties in Naples.On December 11, 1982, Zaza was arrested in Rome. Immediately his health deteriorated and cardiologists believed his situation alarming. He was placed under house arrest. On February 15, 1983, he received another arrest warrant in connection with the Italian end of the Pizza Connection
Pizza Connection Trial
The Pizza Connection Trial was one of the longest criminal jury trials on record in the district of Manhattan. It took place between October 24, 1985 and March 2, 1987-Scope of the trial:...
(with Giuseppe Bono and the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan as well as his father-in-law Giuseppe Liguori). However, Zaza, fled his house arrest in December 1983 and moved to Paris. There, he was arrested again on April 16, 1984, with Nunzio Barbarossa. He was again extradited to Italy. Due to his heart condition he again avoided prison.
Moving to France
After his release in Italy, Zaza moved his base of operations to the South of France to avoid harassment from Italian authorities (particularly new laws which allow the seizure of assets whose origin cannot be accounted for). Until his arrest in Nice on March 14, 1989 (following the discovery of a lorry carrying 500,000 packets of contraband cigarettes), he appears to have engaged in top-level criminal activity, apparently hosting a Camorra drugs summit at the Elysée Palace hotel in Nice in February 1989. In 1990 Zaza’s associates, in particular his father-in-law Giuseppe Liguori, almost managed to buy the casino at MentonMenton
Menton is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.Situated on the French Riviera, along the Franco-Italian border, it is nicknamed la perle de la France ....
, on the French side of the Franco-Italian border.
In July 1991, a French court sentenced him to three years for cigarette smuggling. Benefiting from a French law that facilitates the release of prisoners who already have served half their sentence, Zaza was released in November 1991, while Italian authorities asked for his extradition for Mafia association, drug trafficking and cigarette smuggling.
In May 1993, police dismantled a Cosa Nostra-Camorra ring of 39 people involved in cocaine trafficking and money laundering in Italy, France and Germany (Operation Green Sea). Zaza was arrested in Villeneuve-Loubet
Villeneuve-Loubet
Villeneuve-Loubet It lies between Cagnes-sur-Mer and Antibes, at the mouth of the Loup River.It was created by the joining two old villages: the old village of Villeneuve inland and the village of Loubet on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
on the French Riviera
French Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...
near Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
in Southern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He was extradited from France on March 27, 1994. On July 18, 1994, he died of a heart attack in a Rome hospital where he had been transferred from the Rebibbia prison.