Police Nab World’s First Known Transsexual Mobster

mafiamain_732591aTrue story: Your editor briefly dated the son of a Jersey mafioso in college. He thought I was geeky, I thought he was short– it was sort of awesome– though friends kept telling me about his family connections and how his father was a big homophobe to try to protect me. Of course, this only added to the appeal.

All this is to explain our complete bias over news that Italian police have nabbed Ugo Gabriele, a member of the Camorra, one of Italy’s four mob families, in a raid in Naples. Yes, real mobsters are not cool Godfather types, but c’mon– a transsexual mobster who insists on being called ‘Kitty’ is just fucking cool– I mean other than the whole homicide and drug trafficking thing, of course.

The London Telegraph reports:

“Gabriele, 27, hardly conforms to the image of a gangster’s moll – his police mugshot shows him to be heavy set, with broad shoulders and a double chin.

But there is also an incongruous feminine touch – carefully sculpted eyebrows, blonde highlights in his hair and a light dab of lipstick.

Police said Gabriele was a mafia ‘capo’ or godfather who masterminded a drug dealing and prostitution racket in Naples for the Scissionisti clan of the Camorra.

Investigators said it was the first time they had arrested a transsexual mafia gangster.

Despite his chunky physique and masculine appearance he insisted on being addressed as Kitty, they said.

Gabriele was arrested with another 27 members of the Camorra, a powerful criminal organisation which was investigated by the Italian journalist Roberto Saviano in his best-selling book, Gomorrah, later made into a film.

“It’s a sign that the Camorra has changed not only its code of honour, which once forbade the killing of women and children; it has also changed its internal rules,” said the Corriere della Sera newspaper.”

So yes, very bad man, but awesome story of a real life gay mafioso.

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