How Italy’s history of brutal kidnappings inspired Netflix’s 365 Days – including the case of a boy dissolved in acid
BEHIND the raunchy sex scenes of Netflix’s erotic thriller 365 Days lies a dark and sinister true story – one which saw Italy record 75 kidnappings in a single year. Almost 700 people were abducted in what would become a rampant Italian kidnapping phenomenon, starting in the late sixties and lasting over three decades. Southern […]
BEHIND the raunchy sex scenes of Netflix’s erotic thriller 365 Days lies a dark and sinister true story – one which saw Italy record 75 kidnappings in a single year.
Almost 700 people were abducted in what would become a rampant Italian kidnapping phenomenon, starting in the late sixties and lasting over three decades.
Southern Italy’s feared Calabrian mafia, also known as the ‘Ndrangheta, were largely responsible for the abductions.
But kidnappings were also prominent in its sister group, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra – the same organisation fictional Italian gangster Massimo Torricelli heads up in Polish flick 365 Days.
While the movie plot – which centres around the mafia boss’ abduction of Laura in an attempt to make her fall in love with him in 365 days – isn’t based on one specific event, its foundations are based on Italy’s troubling past.
Targets were predominantly wealthy, middle-class men but women and children were also taken hostage and held for random
Their imprisonment could range from a few days to several years, and in that time they’d often be faced with mutilation, torture and even death.
The profits would be invested in villas and luxury cars but “mostly to enter the cocaine trafficking sector”, anti-Mafia prosecutor Nicola Gratteri explained in 2014.
Slicing off victim’s ear
It was the Calabrian mafia who were responsible for the infamous kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III in 1973, which later inspired Golden Globe nominated film All the Money in the World, as well as Danny Boyle’s 10-part TV series, Trust.
The teen’s family – which included his American oil tycoon grandfather J. Paul – was asked to pay $17 million as ransom.
J. Paul refused, and it wasn’t until months later, when his grandson’s kidnappers cut off his ear and mailed it with a lock of his hair to a newspaper in Rome, that the family decided to cooperate.
John Paul was eventually released after five months, and the following year opened up about his terrifying ordeal.
Recalling the gruesome moment his kidnappers cut off his ear, he told Rolling Stone: “It happened very fast. It sounded like a pssst! He used a razor or a scalpel.
“I was fully conscious, but I didn’t scream. I didn’t pass out. I bit right through that wad of handkerchief and cried.
“The pain was so excruciating but when the pain is so hard, so intense, it goes very fast.”
Stripped and drugged to death
But unlike Getty, some kidnap victims didn’t survive to tell the tale.
Cristina Mazzotti, the nineteen-year-old daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur, was abducted in 1975.
Her father paid the ransom of more than $1million but Cristina’s body was found in a rubbish dump near Novara soon after.
“Her captors stripped, blindfolded and manacled her, blocked her ears, and lowered her into a tiny space below a garage floor,” John Dickie writes in his book Blood Brotherhoods: A History of Italy’s Three Mafias.
“There she was made to consume sleeping pills dissolved in fruit juice for more than two weeks during negotiations with her parents.
“Her body slowly shut down under the cumulative effect of the drugs; she was loaded into a car boot and buried in a rubbish dump.”
PM abducted in kidnapping craze
Kidnap cases peaked in 1977 with 75 abductions in just 12 months.
The following year, former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was abducted by the Red Brigade terrorist group – considered to be one of the most shocking acts of political terror in Western Europe since the end of the Second World War.
Ambushed as he made his way to Parliament, the politician was held captive for 54 days.
His body was later found in the back of a van, riddled with bullets.
The rate of kidnappings slowed down in the 90s, partly because of a law introduced in 1993 which made it easier for the authorities to block the bank accounts of victims’ relatives – in turn making it harder for ransoms to be paid.
But in 1993, the Sicilian mafia targeted 12-year-old Giuseppe di Matteo in one of the country’s most shocking cases yet.
Child dissolved in acid
They tortured the boy and kept him in squalor for almost 800 days in an attempt to force his father, a former mafia member, to withdraw his anti-mafia testimony.
Giuseppe was strangled and his body was dissolved in acid to destroy evidence, a practice known as ‘lupara bianca’.
Just five years prior, in 1988, 19-year-old Carlo Celadon was abducted and kept by the ‘Ndrangheta for 831 days – making him the victim of the longest kidnapping in Italian history.
During that time, he was chained up and put in a small hole dug in the ground. At one point he feared he’d drown when his hole filled up with water during a storm.
“I cried – I screamed at the top of my voice – but no one answered”, Celadon told Italian journalist Pablo Trincia on Italian podcast Buio.
In 2004, kidnapping was said to be “again on the rise” after the abduction of 74-year-old Anna Maria Valdata, the wife of a construction millionaire.
“The nightmare of kidnap and ransom has returned to Italy,” wrote The Independent.
Anna Maria was on her way to church when she was bundled into a car and driven away.
Her husband was ordered to pay €1.25m (£1.13m) “or else we will kill her.”
But the grandmother was released after four days, and it was later confirmed a group hailing from Romania was responsible.
More cash than McDonald’s
Today, the Calabrian mafia is considered the most powerful criminal group in Italy and is a key player in global drug trafficking, specialising in cocaine.
The crime syndicate has spread from Calabria to additional regions in Italy as well as other European countries, and in 2013, reportedly made more money than McDonald’s and Deutsche Bank combined.
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In 2019, the Italian police arrested more than 330 people in one of their biggest operations ever against the ’Ndrangheta.
They seized property worth £13million, firearms and ammunition.
The mob faces a variety of charges including criminal association, murder, money laundering and drug trafficking.