Cross-dresser Mafia boss bust in Sicily

20 August 2014 - 02:01 By ©The Daily Telegraph
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WELL-VERSED: Camorra boss Aldo Gionta, who was arrested this week
WELL-VERSED: Camorra boss Aldo Gionta, who was arrested this week

Italian police have arrested a fugitive mafia boss whose reputation for cross-dressing and writing eloquent notes to his son earned him the nickname "the poet boss".

Aldo Gionta, the fugitive boss of a Naples Camorra mafia clan, was cornered by plainclothes police on Saturday at the Sicilian port of Pozzallo as he tried to board a ferry for Malta using false papers.

The 42-year-old son of revered boss Valentino Gionta, Aldo was believed to have risen to prominence acting as a family kingpin near Naples while his father served hard time.

While on the run, Gionta reportedly wore wigs and dressed in women's clothing to avoid capture, prompting one investigator to claim "Camorra mobsters aren't what they used to be," Italian daily La Stampa reported.

Despite a sartorial reputation, at the moment of his arrest Gionta had opted for a more sober T-shirt and a large pair of glasses.

Earlier in his career the crime chief earned a reputation as a "poet" thanks to secret notes he wrote to his son during a stint in jail in 2008. "Learn to shoot with a machine gun, shotgun and Kalashnikov," read one note.

His lyrical reputation was cemented when a Naples singer, Tony Marciano, who was reportedly linked to the Gionta clan, used some of Gionta's messages in his lyrics.

Marciano recorded the song Nun ciamm arrennere ["We Must Not Surrender"], in which he criticises mafia turncoats who betray their fellow mobsters to the police and who "have lost their omerta", or code of silence.

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