I found a former mafia hitman in caravan park in Lancashire – he cried when he told me his shock story, says Ross Kemp
THINK of the Italian Mafia and the chances are you conjure up images of sharp-suited mobsters in Sicily or Godfather characters on the mean streets of New York.
You wouldn’t expect them to be operating from a Woking furniture shop, living above a butcher’s in Aberdeen or organising a peace treaty at a terraced house in Preston.
But that is what Ross Kemp discovered while making a five-part documentary series.
The EastEnders actor-turned- journalist found that organised criminals from Italy have links to this country stretching back a century.
And he believes they are still operating here today, possibly stronger than ever before.
In the Sky History series Ross Kemp: Mafia And Britain, which begins on Tuesday, he comes face to face with an ex-assassin who lived in a caravan park in Lancashire, and the daughter of a mob boss who hid thousands of pounds in her knickers.
The web of crime leading back to these shores takes Ross to Colombia, the US, Spain and southern Italy.
Experts think Britain is attractive to the mob because it is the biggest market for cocaine in Europe and has a lax attitude to money laundering.
Ross says: “Undoubtedly they’re still here. They’re everywhere.
“They operate in a very different way to the 1920s or 1980s. The most successful ones are the ones you never hear of.”
Started by crime families on the Italian island of Sicily, the first example of the Mafia’s influence over here was in 1920s London.
‘He was stealing Rolexes from age seven or eight’
Charles “Darby” Sabini, who operated out of a part of the capital known as Little Italy, ran racecourse protection rackets against bookmakers and imported gunmen from his family’s homeland.
Links were made with Italian mobsters in New York, with booze being smuggled there during the US prohibition on the consumption of alcohol.
Then, in the 1960s, the Americans muscled in on Britain’s casinos when restrictions on betting were loosened.
In Philadelphia, George “Cowboy” Martorano, who served 32 years in prison for drug offences, told Ross how his godfather Angelo Bruno flew up to 40 big-spending gamblers to London at a time in return for a cut of the profits.
Angelo invited Ronnie Kray over to his home, but the British gangster was arrested for carrying cash shortly after landing.
Strings were allegedly pulled to get Kray out of the country before he could be questioned.
Ross explains: “Angelo Bruno had to get rid of Ronnie Kray very, very quick, because he viewed him to be too unstable.”
As more casinos were allowed in the US, the Mafia appeared to lose interest in England.
But the discovery of Roberto Calvi, 62, hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 sent out a message that they were here.
Calvi — known as “God’s banker” because he dealt with the Pope’s money — is believed to have lost huge sums belonging to a Sicilian mobster.
Ex-Scotland Yard detective Peter Bleksley says: “The Mafia were saying, wherever you go we will find you.”
Many historians suspect hitman Francesco Di Carlo was responsible for Calvi’s murder but no one has ever been found guilty of the crime.
The assassin, also known as Frankie the Strangler, helped to ship heroin and cannabis under the cover of his antiques firm.
Living in a mansion in the stockbroker belt town of Woking, Surrey, Di Carlo drove a Ferrari and had a string of businesses including a hotel and travel agency.
In 1985 his operation was smashed by British customs officers, and he was sentenced to 25 years in jail.
He died in 2000, still denying carrying out the hit on Calvi.
The Italian offence of being associated with the Mafia does not appear on police records over here.
That helped Gennaro Panzuto, a known member of the Camorra crime organisation in Naples, who fled here in 2006 with the help of UK criminals with links to the Italian city.
With Gennaro wishing to lie low, they arranged for him to live in the Six Arches Caravan Park near Preston.
Many people back home wanted Panzuto dead because of all the enemies he had killed.
Ross suspects that the former assassin now just wants his life to end because of all the guilt he feels.
He says: “He was quite tearful in the interview. He got very emotional.
He said, ‘My life’s worthless.’
“He was born to it. He was stealing wristwatches, Rolexes, from the age of seven or eight.
“And because you get away with it, then you get away with pulling a gun on someone and shooting them.”
Panzuto ran credit card scams in Lancashire — and bit the ear off one rival as a show of strength.
Gradually, he restored ties back home and at one point invited members of the Camorra to a “peace” negotiation in his new terraced home in a village near Preston.
He claims that the result of the two-day meet was a truce in Naples.
Ross says: “Whether that is absolutely true, we cannot prove that, but there were definitely meetings of more than one clan at that house.”
‘I stuffed all the money around my knickers’
British police raided Panzuto’s home in 2007 and he was convicted of murder and drug trafficking back in Italy.
But Panzuto only spent 14 years in prison after giving evidence against the Camorra.
Not far away in Blackpool, Marisa Merico got caught up with the notorious ’Ndrangheta syndicate in Italy more than three decades ago.
Brought up here by an English mum, her gangster dad Emilio Di Giovine took advantage of her clean criminal record and English passport when she was 17.
She helped move “dirty money” through airport customs in her underwear for him.
Marisa tells Ross: “I stuffed all the money around my knickers. I never got stopped.”
She was arrested for money laundering in 1994 aged 24 and was jailed for three years and nine months.
Ross explains: “She ran, on behalf of her father, one of the biggest clans in Milan.
“She ended up doing time in Durham with Myra Hindley because she bought a house with laundered money in the UK.”
Gangs place cash from their criminal proceeds into banks or seemingly legitimate businesses to avoid it being traced by the authorities — a process known as money laundering.
Marisa tells Ross how she put £500,000 into Coutts, the bank used by the Royal Family.
In 2012 Coutts was fined £8.75million for breaking money laundering rules.
High street banks, including NatWest, HSBC and Santander, have paid bigger fines for similar breaches.
Why is it Preston? If you go to the last places people will think of, you’ve got a better chance of getting away with it
Ross Kemp
Gus Jones, who filed a report for the Financial Action Task Force about the links between the Italian Mafia and the City of London, found three bullets on his doorstep — one for each member of his family.
Mafia expert Professor Felia Allum claims: “If you were to withdraw all the illegal money in the City of London, would it continue to function normally? I think it might collapse.”
Ross’s investigation also took him to Colombia, the country that supplies most of Britain’s cocaine and which has had close ties with the Mafia.
But a meeting with cartel boss Adolfo Macias, known as Don Fito, was called off after he escaped from jail, where he was serving 35 years in prison for murder and trafficking.
Nearly nine months later Don Fito has still evaded capture.
Gangsters like him prefer the anonymity of less high-profile locations.
Ross concludes: “Why is it Preston? You go to London, you’re going to come to the attention of the authorities at some point.
“Whereas if you go to the last places people will think of, you’ve got a better chance of getting away with it.”
- Ross Kemp: Mafia And Britain is on Sky History on Tuesday and his tie-in book of the same name is published on September 19.