Reported by Edoardo Anziano

It all starts in Spain in August 2006. Inside a villa in the Andalusian city of Marabella, on the Costa del Sol, the brothers-in-law Raffaele Amato and CesarePagano meet up. Pagano lives in the rented villa along with the rest of his family.

Amato and Pagano are the bosses of the Scissionisti Camorra clan — they are also called “the Spanish” because their operational base is in Spain. The two hail from the Scampia neighborhood in the north of Naples, where a feud with an opposing clan, led by Paolo Di Lauro, recently ended, leaving more than 50 dead. In this war to control the drug markets north of Naples, a young drug and arms dealer active between Spain and Amsterdam played a key role: Raffaele Imperiale.

Almost 10 years later, the informant remembers the meeting. As Imperiale starts talking, Amato dismisses the informant and asks him to go make some coffee. He can’t hear what the three of them are discussing, but he remembers one detail: Imperiale “says that he had been to Dubai, and that it was a good place for investments.”

His intuition — which came just as Dubai allowed foreigners to purchase villas and apartments — was a turning point. So much so that Imperiale, a simple real estate investor at the time, left the Netherlands to move to Dubai in 2013. This paved the way for a golden decade during which the Camorra — as the Neapolitan mafia is called — has systematically used investments in the United Arab Emirates to launder drug money and to escape arrest.

Ahead of his time

Imperiale was not the only one investing in the UAE’s real estate sector. Though leaked information shared with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) by the non-profit organization C4ADS, IrpiMedia has revealed that several entrepreneurs accused of having ties with the Camorra are also listed as real estate owners in Dubai.

Fifteen years later, the UAE is now internationally famous for the money laundering and refuge opportunities it offers criminals from all corners of the world. 

Read full report: https://irpimedia.irpi.eu/en-dubai-heaven-italian-mafia-camorra/