Cosimo Di Lauro is an ItalianCamorrista and former acting boss of the Di Lauro clan from Naples. Due to his flamboyant nature and passion for designer clothes, he earned the nickname "The Designer Don". Di Lauro is known by some as "o' Chiatto", and to journalists as the "prince regent".
Biography
Taking over from his father
As the eldest son of the Camorra boss, Paolo Di Lauro aka Ciruzzo 'o milionario, Cosimo took over control of the family business after his father needed to hide from the police. Cosimo Di Lauro wanted to centralize the drug dealing operation that had been run as a franchise in which dealers paid the Di Lauros a fee for doing business and were allowed to buy the drugs from any available source. He removed older gangsters and replaced them with young toughs new to the business. In revolt, a faction known as the "secessionists" challenged the Di Lauros in October 2004.
One of the local dealers, Raffaele Amato, disputed the new rules, fled to Spain and organized a revolt against his former bosses. In Scampia, they are known as the Spaniards. Di Lauro responded by ordering the killing of two rebel associates, Fulvio Montanino and Claudio Salerno on October 28, 2004. During their funeral three days later, police arrested two men armed with machine guns who were planning to spray the funeral procession. The resulting gang war, known as the Scampia feud, resulted in over 60 murders in 2004 and 2005. The two bands fought each other with a brutality that stunned even hardened Carabinieri. The feud caused widespread public revulsion against the Camorra and led to a major crackdown by the authorities, resulting in the capture and imprisonment of high-ranking Camorra figures, including his father.
Arrest
Cosimo Di Lauro was eventually arrested on January 21, 2005, in the crime infested neighbourhood of Scampia. In February, 2008, he was handed down a 15-year prison sentence for associazione camorristica. On December 13, 2008, he was again sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering the murder of Gelsomina Verde, the former girlfriend of a rival Scissionisti gangster, Gennaro Notturno on November 21, 2004. Gelsomina was abducted, tortured and subsequently murdered by Di Lauro clan members, in an effort to make her disclose Notturno's whereabouts. The killers then set her body on fire inside her car, in order to protect them from the "evil eye".
