Pasquale Simonetti

Simonetti’s son Pasqualino was born in prison. In 1974, he was abducted and murdered. His death remains a mystery, but Maresca believed the assailant was Umberto Ammaturo, her new companion, who denied knowing anything about his death.

The life of Pasquale Simonetti and Pupetta Maresca inspired the film La sfida (The Challenge) (1958), by Francesco Rosi with José Suárez as Simonetti and Rosanna Schiaffino as Maresca.

At Christmas 1954, Simonetti left prison, after serving two years of his sentence. On 27 April 1955, he married Assunta Maresca, known as Pupetta (Little Doll), a former beauty queen. The wedding was like a fairy tale with 500 guests, a lot of food and even his rivals Maisto and Esposito. The whole town of Palma Campania turned out to wish them well. Many gave them the traditional envelopes stuffed with money.

On 16 July 1955, at age 29, Simonetti was murdered in broad day light in the Piazza Mercato, the busy market place of Naples. He was shot by Carlo Gaetano Orlando, alias Tanino 'e Bastimento, a small-time criminal in Esposito's entourage and a cousin of the Gaetano Nuvoletta. The six months pregnant Pupetta was devastated. She believed the police knew who the man behind the attack was, but were not prepared to do anything about it. On 4 August 1955, she drove to Naples with her younger brother, Ciro. When they met Esposito, she reached into her handbag and pulled out a Smith & Wesson .38. Holding it with both hands ("I was afraid I would miss," she explained later), she opened fire and killed Esposito in broad daylight.

On 14 October 1955, she was arrested. The trial began in April 1959 at the Court of Assizes in Naples. The killing and the following trial made international headlines. At the trial, she defiantly declared: "I would do it again!" and the whole courtroom bursted into cheers. She was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment, later reduced to 13 years and 4 months by the Court of Appeal. Orlando was sentenced to 30 years.

Some of the more ambitious ones, like Simonetti and Maisto, became more involved. The competition was stiff and resulted in a number of armed conflicts with rival crews. In 1953 Simonetti was imprisoned for 8 years and 3 months for the attempted murder and a shoot-out over territorial supremacy against a rival gang led by Alfredo Maisto in 1952.

Subsequently, he entered the lucrative control over the fruit and vegetable business in Naples. In the early 1950s the Camorra controlled the entire chain of the fruit and vegetable markets. They imposed themselves as the protectors of the peasant farmers and shopkeepers, demanding in exchange the right to fix the price of products and control the business. They set whatever price they wanted and were called "the Presidents of prices".

After World War II the Italian government reintroduced a state monopoly on tobacco. However, the increasing post-war demand for cigarettes could not be satisfied by the state industry. The vast supplies of American and British troops stationed in Naples provided for a black market of popular American cigarettes, the americane or bionde (blondes). When the Allies left in 1946 that supply disappeared and the government was forced to ration cigarettes. Soon a thriving trade smuggling cigarettes from Marseille, Gibraltar, Nice and Tangiers by highly organised and structured foreign criminal groups (the Marseillais, Corsicans, Sicilians) developed, employing local guappi to distribute the cigarettes.

Born in a poor family in Palma Campania, a town located at the foot of the Vesuvius in the hinterland of Naples about 25 km east of the city, Simonetti's father was a carter and his mother was a housewife. His criminal career started in the 1940s falsifying ration books for food which he then sold on the black market.

Pasquale Simonetti (Italian pronunciation: [paˈskwaːle simoˈnetti]; 26 February 1926 – 16 July 1955), known as Pascalone 'e Nola ("big Pasquale from Nola"), was an Italian criminal of the Camorra, a Mafia-type organisation in Naples and Campania in Italy.