The innocent killings my group performed have stayed with me. One in particular. There was a guy who was hassling our contractors, imposing hirings, stealing their cement. We had to kill him but we didn’t know his name. Only where he lived. So someone who knew his face stationed himself near the house with two hitmen. He was to shake hands with the victim: that was the signal. An hour goes by, nothing, two hours pass, nothing, then a guy comes out and goes to shake hands with our man; the shooters immediately fire, but our spotter yells ‘nunnn’è iss, nunn’è iss, it’s not him!!’ Too late. Not only is the young man dead, but then everyone starts saying that he was a Camorrista, because the Camorra never makes a mistake. Only we knew that wasn’t it. We knew and so did his mother, who screamed herself hoarse insisting that her son was innocent. Nobody in Naples ever believed her. Morally I will do whatever I can in the coming months to bring justice to this young man, in the trials.

Anyone who joins a criminal organization knows what’s in store for him. Prison and death. But Prestieri hates prison. He is not a boss used to living on the run in dives, always hiding, always armoured. He’s used to the good life. And most likely this too motivates him to collaborate with the law. ‘Prison is hard. Especially in Italy. We all hoped to be incarcerated in Spain. There once a month, if you behave well, you can be with a woman, and there are gyms and activities in the jail. If you offered me ten years in Spain or five here in Poggioreale, I’d take ten in Spain.’ Just as Casalesi contractors built the prison of Santa Maria Capua Vetere in Caserta, so the prison in Secondigliano was built by contractors chosen by the Secondigliano clans: