Vincenzo Casillo

Vincenzo Casillo (, ; July 8, 1942 – January 29, 1983) was an Italian Camorrista and the second in command of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, a Camorra organization in Naples. His nickname was ("the Big Black one"). As the Nuova Camorra Organizzata's second in command, he participated in a high-level meeting with representatives of the Sicilian Mafia and Camorra clans to try to put an end to the bloody war between the Nuova Camorra Organizzata and their rivals from the Nuova Famiglia, together with Cutolo’s sister, Rosetta.

Purported involvement in the Roberto Calvi murder In June 1996, the Sicilian Mafia pentito, Francesco Di Carlo claimed that Vincenzo Casillo together with another Camorrista, Sergio Vaccari were responsible for the murder of Roberto Calvi, the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano who was dubbed the "God's Banker". Casillo once confessed to murdering the bankrupt financier to Enrico Madonna, Cutolo's lawyer. Madonna himself was later murdered in October 1993, three days after telling a journalist that he was willing to tell a parliamentary commission all he knew about the Cirillo kidnapping affair.

Negotiator in the Cirillo kidnapping Casillo also played an active role in negotiating the release of the Christian Democrat (DC) politician Ciro Cirillo, who had been kidnapped on April 27, 1981 by the Red Brigades. He managed to do so, in spite of being a wanted man at the time.

Assassination On 29 January 1983, Casillo was murdered by a bomb planted under the pedal of his car, next to the SISMI Forte Boccea in Rome. Pasquale Galasso, chief of the Galasso clan and member of the rival Nuova Famiglia headed by Carmine Alfieri, was responsible for the blast. This was one of the first times that a Camorra clan had used this kind of technique to dispose of a rival.

Galasso claimed that he killed Casillo in order to free DC politician Antonio Gava and other Christian Democrats from Cutolo's threats. In a meeting held in April 1982, nine months after the kidnapping, Vincenzo Casillo reportedly told Giuliano Granata, the DC mayor who had taken part with him in the negotiations: "You did what you wanted and then washed your hands".

According to Galasso, who later became a pentito, the reasons for his murder were:

Not long after his death, his partner, the dancer Giovanna Matarazzo, declared to judge Carlo Alemi that Casillo's death was linked to the murder of Roberto Calvi. Matarazzo disappeared a few weeks after his death, and her body was eventually found in a ditch under a motorway in December 1983.

The fact that a secret service card that could be used by Casillo was found in his burnt-out car lends some credibility to the scenario that his death might have been linked to the Cirillo kidnapping.

As the Anti-Mafia commission once wrote:

On the turning point that had been reached with Casillo's murder, Galasso stated in court:

The assassination of Casillo was followed by the murders of several Nuova Camorra Organizzata members by the Nuova Famiglia. Nicola Nuzzo, a key Nuova Camorra Organizzata member involved in the negotiations was battered to death in the ward of a Roman hospital in 1986, soon after a meeting with Carlo Alemi, the magistrate who was investigating the Ciro Cirillo release case. Salvatore Imperatrice, Casillo's bodyguard and also a member of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata negotiating team, died of mysterious causes – alleged by authorities to be suicide, in a mental asylum in March 1989. Mario Cuomo, who lost his legs in the explosion that killed Casillo, was eventually murdered in October 1990.