The Underworld Podcast - Cocaine, Camorra, Call Girls: Maradona's Downfall

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

In 1987, Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona was on top of the world. He’d just handed his nation a World Cup, and his club side Napoli its first league title in over 60 years. But Maradona’s hard-partying lifestyle and underworld friends would soon take their toll - and before long, the world’s greatest sportsman was in a tangled web of vice, drugs and match-fixing that would haunt him until his dying days. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's November 8, 1989. A Buenos Aires is Estadio Luna Park, a cavernous arena that's played host to some of the brightest stars in Latin American boxing, basketball, and music. The Harlem Globetrotters have just dazzled a week previous. But even they are about to be out-razzled-dazzled by this event, a union Argentina and the world has anticipated for years. Diego Maradona, World Cup winner, Italian League champion, doesn't do things by halves. But even by his standards, the 29-year-old strikers long-awaited wedding to Claudia Villafani, mother of his two daughters, it's off the hook.

1,100 people are treated to an all-night party featuring champagne, caviar and an almost 9-foot cake. Black, silver and grey drapes hang all around Lunar Park, focused on a 40-foot waterfall surrounded by plants. Via Fania's dress is encrusted with over 16 pounds of pearls, and its designer follows her everywhere to keep it in check. All through the day, reporters of travel. tried and failed to get access to the couple. Maradonna had even punched one plucky paparazo trying to sneak into the ceremony. Later on, one of the complaints about the media blackout. Maradonna scoffs.

You didn't invite me to your wedding, he says. The party goes on and on and on. Folks only start packing up at 8 a.m. the next day. The whole thing has cost millions. But Maradonna has the cash. He's only just signed a contract. extension at his club Napoli worth $1.5 million a year, plus massive bonuses, a quarter of the team's souvenir sales and a dozen first-class round-trip flights to Buenos Aires each year.

Among the guests are heavyweights of sport, entertainment and politics, but also Piero Puezio. Pouliesi is Maradona's driver. But he's also, it's rumored, a hit man for the Camorra, Naples' brutal underworld, whose leaders have leapt on Maradonna mania to increase their already huge criminal fortunes. Camoristi have been showing up to Napoli's training sessions for years and using members of the club's ultra fan group to rob rivals or pull triggers. Accusations are growing that they're deeply involved in Italy's illegal sports betting black market. Some even think they're pressuring Maradona himself to throw matches. None of that is bothering Pouliasi. however, at his boss's wedding.

He's having such a great time in Luna Park that he falls in love with a local woman named Alessandra. A while after, the day before he is due to leave, Pulizzi gets a call from Guillermo Coppola, Maradona's glitzy agent, asking him to carry a package to deliver to the player in Naples and to carry

it as hand baggage. It's just a bunch of Buenos Aires newspapers, Coppola says. They must be special editions, though, because Coppola is offering 25 million Italian lira or just over 50,000 US dollars in today's cash for delivery. Soon after, when folks at a local bank start asking questions about Pouliézi's money, he calls Maradonna. There's chaos down here, he says, and the cops are sniffing around.

There's a brief silence on the line. Come over, the star tells his driver, meet me at home. The conversation is being taped, not by police, but by another client of Pouliases, A mysterious lawyer, a neo-fascist named Angelo Cereboni. Pugliézi is scared that Coppola, the agent, is trying to bring his new girlfriend, Alessandra, in on a Comorra drug ring. In 1991, as the sex and drugs case against Maradona is roiling, Karboni and Pouliesi stroll unannounced into the Anti-Drugs Office of Rome's Palace of Justice,

and they demand to see the judge. Here's your evidence, they saw. Diego Maradona isn't just a puppet on the Camorra strings. The world's most famous sportsman, the pair ad, is a full-blown cocaine trafficker. This is the Underworld podcast. Hello and welcome to the weekly audio visual experience that leaps into another dark corner of the criminal hinterland. I am your host Sean Williams in Altiero, New Zealand, Keor-a-O-Roto, and I'm joined as ever by my irrepressible colleague, an infrequent steak-eating buddy Danny Gold in the big house.

Apple. We are both journalists, reporters. We know short-handed. We're doorstep grieving families so you know we're good and moral people. Actually, I don't know short-handed. I don't care to Sean. It's horrific, actually. I remember it. I get cold sweats even when I think about doing those tests. Anyway, before we dive into our second episode about Diego Maradonna and the mob, I think there must have been a cool two or maybe even three people that ask when is this episode coming out online. Let's do some housekeeping. Thanks to everyone. Subscribe to the Patreon. There's plenty of bonus interviews and Stash our specials there, including one.

I think we're going to put up in a day from now as we're recording this from the road trip that I just did. There's plus ad-free shows, notes and other incredibly cool stuff. That's patreon.com slash general podcast. And more you can sign up also on Spotify or on iTunes directly in the app. Yeah, there's merch online in case you want to look like us, which is unlikely, but it's worth a show, isn't it? Remember to direct your tips and abuse to our email address, which is the underworld podcast at gmail.com. Quick shout out to Napoli, who actually won the Italian League a couple of weeks ago, thanks to the mighty Scottish duo of Billy Gilmore and Scott Motome. I think today they signed Kevin DeBroner, which is mad.

We are always up on the news here, guys. But to Diego Armando Maradona, a second time. In part one, we left the Argentine legend, a World Cup winner and winner of the Golden Ball, which is the tournament's MVP. He's on his way to winning Napoli's first league title over 60 years. He's a hero to millions and probably the world's most recognizable sportsman, but he's been burning the candle at both ends for years, pulling drug-fueled all night as with piles of cocaine and rotating battalions of sex workers. And he's keeping company with some of the most feared gangsters in Naples, particularly the Giuliano family, which belong, of course, to the Camorra. And on the back end of the 1980s,

World Cup winning Mexico. It's self-tainted, if you listen to that show, by the rise of the Medellin cartel in Colombia. Maradonna fires his longtime agent and power from Buenos Aires, Jorge Sataspila, replacing him with a flashy 38-year-old called Guillermo Coppola. You know, call it anti-talent discrimination, but that name, that is a criminal's name. Yeah, thoughts and comments to the email. Listen now to Part 1 if you haven't already, but if you have,

you'll know then that we're up at the top of the mountain and we're about to careen down its flank and we'll end up with a tape 1999 phone called Maradona mates to a gangland madam that wind up with him facing some pretty serious criminal charges and then we'll go into more controversy, bands Mafia match fixing the Comoras Fultunes through the 90s and early 2000s Maradona's unlike the final act in Kuliakhan of all places is insane and we'll finish with a rundown of where the Camorra is today.

So there's lots to get through. But guys, let's begin in the summer of 1986, which is when Maradona returns to Naples from Mexico, a world champion. He's literally on top of the world. He's revered by millions not least in his native Argentina, when some of the more wingnut fans are calling him literally a gift from God. And a couple of months later, he kicks off the 1986-87 Italian League with Napoli, tip to win the thing.

fun fact there is actually a church of maradona the iglesia mariton maradoniana founded in the argentine city of rosario said it's found a quote i have a rational religion and that's the catholic church that's questionable and i have a religion based on my heart and passion and that's diego maradona i bet that guy loves a fiery conversation anyway he is kind of a big deal maradona but things aren't great in el mundo de maradona the hard living is catching up up with him and a media storm is brewing over his alleged fathering a son with a 22-year-old Neapolitan woman who swears Maradona as the dad even though he's been with Claudia Villafanier the whole time and who calls her newborn son Diego Armando Maritona which is not low-key is it via finding it leaves Naples of Buenos Aires because why wouldn't she the attention is beginning

to strangle the star and he rarely ventures out of his home other than to train with his Napoli teammates. This is a great city, he says, but I can hardly breathe. I want to walk around. I'm a lad like any other. Except, of course, he's not. He's the most famous man in Naples, maybe even the most famous person in Italy or even Europe. And to Napoli fans, including those violent ultras, he's an irreplaceable talisman, without whom the whole Napoli project will come tumbling down quicker than a Camorra built housing project. A friend of Maradonnas, speaking to the Guardian reporter Ed Vali Amy in 1991 says, quote, Maradonna had achieved everything, but he wasn't really happy. He became introspective. He wanted to flee from those gathered around him. He always

said, I'm not a saint. I'm a football player. Football has been his whole life, but now he seemed to be looking for another man inside himself and outside football and to look for new friends. These people were the lowest of the low, and Maradona, weak and lonely, couldn't say no. Those friends in low places are, of course, the mob. Maradonna has been making friends in Naples underworld since he arrived. But as the walls start closing in, as he turns more and more to drink and drugs, he falls into the arms of goons who are all too happy to embrace him. Remember from show one, the Giuliano clan, based in the ancient districts of Forcella,

had been making tons of cash from fake Maradonna merchandise and warned his former agent to back off opening in copyright cases in court, whether under duress or not, Maradona had then appeared to side with the mobster. Quote, I'm perfectly happy if businesses in Naples can survive because of my face. In January 1986, as Napoli were on their way to the league tight or Italian Cup, a domestic double, two Giuliano Camoristi had shown up at the club's training ground, seeking out Maradona and telling him they wanted to get to know him even better. By this point, later in the year, he's a guest of the club. clan at parties, feasts, even family baptisms.

Around the time of the World Cup, Italian cops raid the home of Carmine Giuliano, one of the clans of young leaders. They discover a photo album with 71 snaps of Carmine posing with Maradonna, sitting on sofas, raising toasts, arm in arm with some of Naples most brutal drug traffickers. Incriminating photo albums, man. What a quaint time. Yeah, just a nice little instant camera, one-hour photos.

a better time you could say. Not for Maradona. Well, better than now, because he's dead. Anyway, at this point, it's possible Maritona, with all his fame and fortune, could quite simply slip free from the Camorda's grip. But A, he's addicted to cocaine, alcohol and sex, and he's in the mad cycle of play football, Sunday, party till Wednesday, sober up Thursday, Friday, Saturday, rinse and repeat.

And B, because beside the Cameristi, he's only surrounded by hangers-on and sycophans, none more opportunistic than this new agent, Guillermo Coppola. Writes John Ludden in his book, Maradonna once upon a time in Naples, quote, the larger than life 38-year-old fellow charismatic Argentinian. Coppola's appetite for making money was matched only by an insatiable lust for cigars, good wine and bad women. I only have one of those lusts, and it is the one about money, guys.

Coppola negotiates for Maradola to have his own weekly TV show for younger listeners the TV show. It's kind of like a podcast you watch on a television. It's like a really big phone. You can only watch it at one certain time of day on one day a week. Imagine that. Despite Napoli's great form in the 1986-87 season, Maradona is struggling with the left ankle that was torn to shreds by medieval defenders in the Spanish League while he was at his former club Barcelona. He takes tons of quarters and injections, which allows him to play through the pain. But he's suffering physically, which only spirals his dependence. dependent on cocaine's numbing powers. In later life, Maradonna opens up about this time, quote,

the most difficult thing is having people around all the time, people surrounding me. Though when I was ill, I had my problems with drugs, I felt like the loneliest man on earth. That's pretty sad, but the drugs aren't the only thing that Camor is into by the mid to late 80s. We spoke last time about how it went from small-time scams to cigarette smuggling and later narcotics and then made hundreds of millions of dollars off the back of the 1980 Erepinina earthquake and all the corrupt government contracts and the building projects it borrowed its way into well it's also deep into gambling and this drives right at the heart of what the Khmer even is or how it even came into existence kidnapping too was that more of an

andranga thing that was definitely the endrangetta i think uh there's some graph that uh that i spoke about in last And Dragete episode, but I think it was like 90% of kidnappings during the time were guys from Calabria or Calabrians on other Calabrians. Yeah, so they were pretty much the guys when it came to that stuff. So quick history lesson now. Most experts agree that the Comorra comes into being as the unification of a bunch of prison gangs when Italy is unified itself in 1861. Italy is really young. It's crazy. And it makes its early cash from political corruption and highway robberies. The etymology of the word

Komorra is believed to be a portmanteau of Morda and Capo, Capo, of course, being a boss, and Morda is an old betting game. So Camorri refers to the cash taken by bosses from the game. Yeah, I think they were banished too, right, in the countryside and hills and stuff like that, like

highway robbery men, that sort of thing. They definitely had that presence there in World War II. Yeah, yeah, they're pretty like small time until the war and that post-war period. But Here's a description from a 2012 William Langavisha post. In fact, posts. It's not a post, mate.

I'm so sorry to my idol. This is a Vanity Fair article because, yeah, why not just quote the great man in full? The Khmer is not an organisation like the mafia that can be separated from society, disciplined in court, or even quite defined. It is an amorphous grouping in Naples and its hinterlands of more than 100 autonomous clans and perhaps 10,000 immediate associates, along with a much larger potty. of dependence, clients and friends. It is an understanding, a way of justice, a means of creating wealth and spreading it around. It has been a part of life in Naples for centuries, far longer

than the fragile construct called Italy has even existed. At its strongest, it has grown in recent years into a complete parallel world and, in many people's minds, an alternative to the Italian government, whatever that term may mean. Neapolitans call it the system with resignation and pride. The Camara often has them work, lends them money, protects them from the government, and even suppresses street crime. The problem is that periodically the Camorra also tries to tear itself apart. And when that happens, ordinary and Neapolitans need to duck. If you're listening, King, please, just please come on our show so I can tell you how great you are. I might do an entire show on the Atomic Bazaar just so I can reread all this

articles. So yeah, what a hero, man. Jesus, just settle down, dude. This is a family podcast. Yeah, sorry. I'll have a, I'll take a moment after the show. Anyway, by the 1980s, the Camorra is making over a quarter of a billion dollars a year. All this is an extremely poor city, of course, and it's employing up to 60,000 people across the wider Campania region. It's also going through a bitter civil war, with Medellin's like assassinations of political figures and judges, all because of the desperation of a capo named Rafaeli Cotolo's attempts to seize control of the entire thing. But we'll get more into that in another episode. Basically, the Comorite is also known for its sophisticated money laundering enterprises,

especially through bars, hotels and restaurants up and down Italy. But gambling remains in its DNA, particularly that of the Giuliano's, who are cozying up to Maradona. It's an open secret across Naples that the clan runs in illegal football pools, the Totonero from their villa in the Forcella. For US listeners, this is an accumulator bet, a parley. So you're guessing the results of all eight fixtures that particular match week. Which is insane.

Like no one ever would win that. It has like a lot of like mega millions type odds. Yeah, that's what everyone in Europe does. Like half my mates will bet on all what, like 10 football results on a weekend. And they never win, although I get lots of WhatsApp screenshots of, of I just missed it by two results. Yeah, man, that's an accumulator. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, we do, me and my brothers do home run bets. Like every, every, every, you know, you throw something on Otani and Judge and Soto maybe or

Lindor and then you put four other people and it's like 15,000 to one odds, but you never win. Yeah. No, you literally never do. Uh, or maybe you do, but you don't. There is a legitimate pause at this time, which is the state run total, Calcio, Calcio is football in Italian. and this accumulator tries to ensure that nobody fixes matches because, like we just said, obviously you would need to fix eight separate matches to be sure of a payout. But 15 billion to one odds, hello, this is Italy. So there have been illegal single match bets for years, of course. In the late 1970s, the owner of a Rome restaurant called La Lampara had noticed that a bunch of players at top division side Lazio were dining at his place.

And so, you know, what else does he do? He convinces them to show at pro games in return for a cut of the winnings of him and the guy who supplies his pasta. Yes, this is like deep cut Italo core crime. I mean, it's incredible stuff. The only thing more time would be if he poised in the meatball so they lose or something like that. I really wouldn't like rule it out. Business owners, quick question. When someone hears your phone number, does it stand out or does it just sound like a bunch of numbers, a bunch of, you know, just some jumble.

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brought to you by In the Cloud I mean the first game these guys throw it ends in a draw which wins

the Lampara syndicate which just less we forget is a chef and his bastard guy

a ton of cash but a ton of subsequent games don't go down as planned, and the restaurant owner and his pasta guy are down almost half a million bucks. In March 1980, they actually go to the cops in anger, it's so Italian, handing them a list of 27 players in 13 teams they've roped into the match fixing scam. And on March 23rd that year, on the final whistle at stadiums across the country, Italian financial police run onto the pitch and arrest 11 players and the club president live on national TV.

it is crazy stuff. Yeah, I mean, that's just major snitching. And for your own idea, there's no way those, like the pasta guy and the chef got out of this alive, right? But also, like, if... I think they just got arrested. If you pay these guys to throw a game and they don't throw it, aren't they not guilty? I don't know. Let us know.

Answers, just don't send us answers to that. No, don't brookies. As a lot of you will know, this. is far from the end of Italian match-fixing scandals. There is, of course, a 2006 Calciopoly affair when cops attack the phones of referees, club officials and others, and get dozens of convictions, plus relegating Churin Giant Juventus to the 2nd Division.

Oh yeah, and it happens again in 2011. Whoopsie. Back to the mid-1980s, though. The Giuliano's realized they don't have to throw games to make money. They could just offer an alternative underworld pools, the Totonero. and it's wildly popular. Neapolitans are pouring millions of lira,

tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars into this thing each week. Punters can play on credit and the payouts are tax-free. It's every gambler's dream to Tera Norseco or hit the jackpot earning a fortune from the mob. It writes Luton quote,

it came as little surprise in a highly superstitious city like Naples where people carried with them blessed amulets to ward off evil spirits that there were those convinced Totonero numbers came in dreams, placed there by deceased relatives. It was all just a question of translation. For example, if Diego Maradona appeared, he obviously represented number 10. It was said that with an aid of an ancient medieval practice and numerology called Kabbalah,

believers could try for themselves to pick their own numbers. Yeah, I think in that book I always mentioned Naples 44, they talk about how old school superstitions the people of the city of Naples are, like especially out in the rural areas, almost like it's like this, this mystical pagan type of, like that's how it makes it sound, you know,

like doesn't sound Catholic at all. It sounds like so, so mystical and superstitious in that way. It's, it's fascinating stuff. Yeah, it's like Santeria, right? It's like really, really similar to that.

I was going to say that I had a dream about a boxing journalist named Steve Buntz, who invited me to a Berlin home in a skyscraper that had loads of like porcelain cups. What's that all about? When did you have, this dream. Last night, I actually slept for the first time in like days. I think it means that on Canello. Canello is fighting Crawford, I think, in September. So I'm

going to bet on Caneloa because he's, you know, from Sinolawa. So I think that means bet on him. Man, that fight's going to be outstanding. Yes, incredible on Netflix too. It's fun. Thank you, Abby. Shit. Oh, my God. Okay. Yeah, boxing aside, some Neapolitans even use spirit guides called Santoni or Santoni to predict results, such is the clamor for the Camoras Totonero. Carmine Giuliano is one of the biggest figures in the city's black market, therefore. He gets the nickname Ildiorni or the lion. And unlike other Camoristi, he loves the limelight.

He cashes in on the adulation of those in Naples' ancient city centre, not least from his association with Madadona. It's not like the cops have no idea about any of this at the time. A memo from the leader of Naples' flying squad in 1986 refers to, quote, the strange presence of Maradona in the company of those convicted or under inquiry for association with the Camorra, but also a curious relationship of some kind with those convicted with the organization of underground football pools,

the primary funds of the Camorra organization, end quote. That same year, judges in Turin open investigations into Totonera up there too, and they get hot on the tail of the Giuliano's and the Losos, a powerful rival clan based in the... the north of Naples. And this won't be the last we hear about the Toto Nero. But for now, in 1987, despite the drugs and the drink and the cortisone injections and the mad wayward sex life, Maradonna is raking it in. Perhaps because of it. That summer, Napoli win the Italian league, pipping Juventus to the title by three points. At the final game that May,

the Napoli-Oltra's unfurler banner at the San Paolo Stadium. Naples has three beautiful things it reads. The Bay, Vesuvius, and Madadona. Now, Danny, some lesser clubs might celebrate a major win with an open-top bus parade or a party in the town square. You know how long Napoli's fans go wild after this league win? Yeah, three months. And that's only two and a half months longer than some of my old Berlin sessions.

Fans hang a banner at a local cemetery. Quote, you don't know what you're missing, it reads. That is incredibly fast. I mean, I like it, you know? Yeah, yeah. What more festive way to celebrate a football league win than traveling to a cemetery and hanging a banner. It's a little disturbing.

Dark. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty weird. The player himself is paraded around the pitch like a Messiah. He's crying with happiness. He's overwhelmed by the achievement. That night, the night they win the league, Naples is a light with fireworks and street parties.

But Maradona isn't with fans or fellow Napoli stars. He's at a party held in his honour by Carmine Giuliano in a village on the edge of town. Right's John Ludden, quote, the venue was kept secret until the last moment. Thanks, John. That's like literally a sort of mafia party. So yeah. The guests arrived in sleek, black, stretched limousines, surrounded by mean-faced bodyguards and most prized beautiful mistresses clinging to their arms. It was said to have been a lavish affair, even by Commodore standards. This thing is pretty lit. Luton goes on, quote,

against a backdrop of Maradona's finest goals of Napoli being replayed endlessly on large video screens, the finest women wine and white powder money could buy was on offers to those lucky enough to be present by special invitation. All took advantage to Giuliano's generosity. None, it was said, more than Diego Maradona, who partied equally hard as the most drunken, delighted Neapolitan. Enjoying the forbidden fruits of his hard-earned labour, many of the gangs have gambled heavily on the back of Maradona's lead, Napoli to success, earning themselves huge fortunes. Something tells me that it like if the Pacers win or Oklahoma, you know, or Edmonton, like the celebrations, they're not going to look the same.

No, I don't know. Right there. The finest white powder and women in Indianapolis just doesn't have the same ring to it. Yeah, the finest stakes at Catman's Ranchers and the finest fried okra at Akachi. It's not quite, it doesn't quite hit the same. Yeah, I don't know. Like, John, I mean, I think I'm reading an early version of John, like, John, I mean, I think I'm reading an early version of John, like, book, so probably a bit unfair to him. There's a lot of words in there. Anyway, in December that year, Maradona signs his huge lucrative new contract. We Guillermo Coppola reckoned to be making a huge

cut. Coppola comes out in public declaring that, quote, Maradona's children will eat caviar for the rest of their lives, which, I don't know, caviar sucks. Definitely, no kids are going to like it. I've only had it once in St. Petersburg at this insanely fancy hotel. I've got a free stay. It's just, it's just salty balls, man. It's just salty squads. Whigy balls, nothing that good comes in a tin. Prove me wrong. I don't know, bro. That's what I thought in that I had some good caviar recently, and it's pretty amazing.

Okay, counterpoint. Caviar is good. Danny Gold said so. The following season, Napoli finished second to A.C. Milan, who were then owned by Media Tycoon and Future Bungabunga, Endurance Champion, Severe, O'Sconi, and staffed by stars, including the Dutch duo Rudhlet and Marco Van Bastian, Maradonna finished his top score, of course, but he's sliding further and further into chaos and brattiness,

flying off on one of his first-class flights to Buenos Aires in a huff, and demanding that club-own of Corrado Feleno fires the coach, which he refuses to do. Worse still, Napoli lose the final game of the season. In May 1998, 3-2 to Fiorentina of Florence, amid growing rumours they'd actually thrown a previous game to Milan at the behest, I said it guys, behest of the Comorra. sometimes you just got to sort of linguistically go there Danny I am I'm an edge lord of the English language

this alleged mafia match fixing is laughed off by the Napoli higher-ups at the time and for a while investigations go nowhere but they'll be back oh yeah they will soon enough for now though it's back to business as usual which in Napoli and Maradona's case means conflict drama and the occasional flash of footballing brilliance the next season and Napoli finished second again, this time behind Internationale of Milan, led by Italy's national striker Aldo Serena. Maradona slips way down the goal scorers list this year, and thanks to his constant partying, he just looks like a broken man in body and spirit. He can barely walk before matches, revived only by the jab of a doctor's needle, and once a year he goes

under a surgeon's knife to have leftover cortisone literally scraped off his joints with a scalpel. What's more, the Argentine seems bitter. Fulano for sticking with the coach and to the fans for questioning his commitment, which, I mean, isn't the least fair thing, given his photographed out on Benders every night. But, you know, I think if you're the king like I do in this show, then everybody else is a surf, right? Anyway, this may Napoli beat German side Stuttgart to win the UA for Cup,

which is the second most prestigious club cup behind the European Cup. Today, rebranded as the Europa League. That's a lot of words for a non-football fan. it is a thriller. 5-4 an aggregate, and Maradonna scores a penalty in the two-legged victory, but any goodwill is short-lived. Maradona's cocaine abuse is completely out of control.

He's nailing it from Sunday through Wednesday every week before his end of week, quote, cleansing. Even Corrado Feleno, the man who had moved heaven and earth and reached out to the mob to secure Maradona's transfer, admits being the stars, quote, Jaila. Guillermo Coppola has met with officials at Marseilles,

then one of Europe's best teams, to discuss a potential transfer. And when, a couple weeks after the Stuttgart game, Maradonna limps out of a match against lowly Pisa, the fans turn on him, hurling coins and plastic bottles onto the turf. The fans who boo me, Maradonna says, after the game,

are pure cretins. Dude, that is some dark turning on your players, I mean, like, you know, I guess 76 years like the Ben Simmons treatment, even though, to be fair, Ben Simmons kind of get it to himself. And it sounds like Maradona, I guess he's doing it to himself too. But, you know, it's rough, dude, really rough. It's rough. What is the thing with fans in Philadelphia? I don't really know much about it, but everyone seems to crap on it.

To Philadelphia, it's just the city, man. They don't mess around out there. It's just a bunch of scumbags, but in like a great kind of way, you know? We love. A bunch of violent scumbags, but in a nice way. Yeah, I mean, I went to Philly once to a, to an interview. Bernard Hopkins and it seemed like a nice place.

And Bernard Hopkins is weirdly nice. Go to Kensington. See how you feel about it then. Okay. Okay, we'll do. Isn't that like gentrified now or something? I don't know. No, no, it's not, my friends.

Oh, wait, no. That is the place, the Fent place. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's a bad place. No transfer for Maradonna. Remember, we're talking about Maradonna, I think. No transfer for Maradonna, though, is made. And in March, 1989, he attends the lavish wedding of a

Giuliano clan member. He also befriends Gennaro Monturi, head of the Napoli Ultras, who has ties to the city's underworld, and he takes on Piero Puliolioli, nominally a security guard at the San Paulo Stadium, but rumoured to be a Camara trigger man as his driver. At this point, hooked on gear and increasingly depressed, Maradonna is little more than a Camorra marionette, a symbol of legitimacy for gangs that are biting off bigger and bigger chunks of the European cocaine trade. With Coppola raking in and his side, Maradonna's circle of friends in Naples winnows to an almost entirely criminal coterie. It includes a young man named Felice Pizza, which doesn't that just mean happy pizza? That's a pretty good name. This guy works on the metro,

but he's also a gopher for prostitution rings, bringing girls to his new famous friend. Maradonna's little sister Maria marries an underworld figure who introduces Maradona to a burly club owner called Italo Iovine, a Camorra boss's nephew and a key figure in the underground sex trade. You might remember Iovino from Part 1's Cold Open. It's he who hooks Maradona up with Donna Carmena Chinquegrana, one of the Camorra's favorite madams and who Maradona is taped by cops asking for girls and drugs. I feel like the only way I can do these Italian names is by like going way OTT with the accent, which is do it, kind of how Italian works, right? Do it. But none of these folks, yeah, not even Carmine Giuliano, Carmine Giuliano himself,

get as close to the star as Mario Luzzo, aka the captain, the square-jawed, flinty-eyed head of the Logruzzo Camorra clan. It is La Russo who brings Maradonna his cocaine, and LaRuso who is often there with the player, snorting and linking him to Iovine and a grander-night sex workers. When robbers blow a hole in their own bank vault in 1989 and still, among other treasures, Maradonna's 1986 World Cup golden ball, it is the Lourousseau's he reaches out to.

Salvatore Leruso, the clan's elderly patriarch, actually claws back some of the minor possessions for Maradona after this raid. But the ball, he says, has already been melted down and sold by the robbers who work for the Picoazzi clan. writes Luggan quote The Piccoazzi did not want a war On being informed of the bad news by Don Salvatore Maradona was wise enough to know how things worked

and not kick up a fuss For this was Naples Even kings had to behave You think this utter turmoil would ruin Maradona on the field Nope Incredibly Napoli win their second ever league title The following year with Maradona hopping off to Buenos Aires for his show-stopping nuptials

that November remember the cold open. In the summer of 1990, Italy hosts the World Cup. And incredibly, Italy and Argentina face each other in the semifinal, in Naples. And so, it is here. The ultimate choice of Neapolitans. Does this city route for a country that hasn't always loved it? Indeed, a country that for long periods have actively hated it?

Or do they choose King Diego and his Argentine compadres? over half of whom have family ties to the south of Italy in any case. On the eve of the game, Maradonna himself decides in typical fashion to inject even more spice into the occasion. Napoli non-I Italia. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd, but too often, life gets busy,

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Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. They get their race day fit, and you get a payout for trying. Someone on Deepop wants what you've got. Start selling now. Deepop where taste recognizes taste. He declares, Napoli is not Italy. Maradonna goes on. There have been, quote, decades of racism against this city, he says,

telling Napoli fans to back his nation to make the World Cup final instead. Maybe not the cranes he called out shortly, for many do though and as west germany cruelly knock out england after a penalty shootout the argentines go through in exactly the same way against italy with maradonna scoring the decisive spot kick he wheels off in celebration the italian crowd fumes maradonna reads one morning headline is the devil i mean this whole thing is pretty crazy man like what uh yeah it's wild dude this is an incredible story yeah i mean this is how good sports were without PR managers It's like so much better.

Argentina lose to the Germans in the final, but to millions of Italians, that is academic. In their eyes, Maradona is a traitor, a villain. Even to many in Naples who've worshipped him for almost seven years. Napoli kick off the following year with a thumping 5-1 win over Juventus. But the vibes, listeners, the vibes are not good. Maradona claims there's a campaign against him in Naples and promises to leave the club.

since the semi-final with the World Cup he says, quote, I have had no peace. I mean, the guy has been on a seven-year drug-fueled terror. He's probably on his third or fourth lap of Naples' entire prostitute circuit. No wonder he's at his limit. But you know what, William S. Borough

said, Danny, sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts. Yes, Maradonna might be higher than the average day, trade of most weeknights, but gossip across Naples suggests there may well be those who are out to get him, not least among them the violent gangsters he's been calling friends for so long. You see, the Camorra

have just had a very bad financial year. Given Napoli's poor performance in the 88-89 season, they'd set Totonero odds of four to one of them winning the 89 to 90 season. That, of course, hadn't stopped flocks of Napoli fans laying millions on their beloved team. So when Maradonna's boys had in fact won the league title in 1990, the gangs had lost fortunes. It is at this point, it's theorized, that Comorah leaders began intimidating their Argentine talisman, stepping up the hate after his World Cup comments. It's around this time, sorry, is someone in the house? Hello?

One second, just give me like 30 seconds. Federal Redd. If you're getting arrested, it would be great for the podcast. Okay, I'm back. It's around this time that Mario Leruso, realizing his phones are being tapped by the cops, he starts throwing Maradona's name around in conversation. bringing him to the attention of the carabiniari, the gendarmes of Italy. Even Corrado Feleno, the club's owner, is said to have had enough of his wayward champion at this point,

lifting protections from cops and mobsters. If Maradonna wants Marseille, he reckons, and hates Italy so much, why am I looking out for him? All this is coming at a time when Italian-organised criminal violence is going through the roof. A civil war between two and Drangetta families kicks off in the Calabrian town of San Luca in 1991. Listen to our recent Andranga kidnapping episode for more on that. There is the 1992 bombing of Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three bodyguards on a highway outside Palermo. And the Comorra Civil War is killing civilians across Naples, including young kids, as it strengthens its ties with Latin American drug cartels, christening an era of so-called Camorra di Impresa or corporate Camorra.

The Italian president comes out and says the organised crime quote seems to have taken control of part of the national territory. His government signs in new laws, pretending mobsters from communicating from prison via in-person meetings, phones or mail, and sending or receiving large amounts of money. This in turn creates a new wave of pentiti or turncoats, Maffiosi turning state's witness, which begins to chip away at the power of the gangs, albeit at a cost of even more heightened violence.

An example of this is the September 1990 killing of a 12-year-old boy named Andrea Esposito, one of a ton of so-called muscili or little flyers, used by the Comorah for their speed and agility, but expendable, of course, when they've served their purpose. Here is the New York Times writing about the murder, quote, Like thousands of boys who skirt the law on the raw-bone streets of this southern Italian city, Andrea knew plenty of ways to make money. He even worked an early morning shift at a bar on the outskirts of town. But one mid-September day, he made a serious mistake.

He witnessed the gangland killing and talked about it. A gunman from the clan of the Comorra, the neapolitan version of Sicily's mafia, tracked Andrea to the bar, forced him into a corner, and shot him twice in the back of the head. Two days earlier, in another town outside Naples, an eight-year-old boy died. The boy, Paolo Longobardi, was at his home with his father, Antonio, with a Comorah gunman, emptied a hunting rifle through a bedroom window, killing them both. Even by the standards of Italy's crime-hardened South, this has been a blood-soaked year.

And in September's burst of killings of children flight... And September's burst of killings of children frightened many Italians into the disturbing conclusion that they are losing their long battle against the mafia and its cousins. Man, that's a crazy... It's nuts, right? Like, absolutely insane. Yeah, like just wild, wild stuff, man. Yeah, and brilliant writing, which shows you that good writing and writing good stories

gets people engaged in the news. Amid this backdrop, Napoli's club leadership and underworld supporters see a chance to make Maradonna a scapegoat. In November 1990, Napoli winner league match against Fiorentina. Maradonna doesn't play. He spent the night on a Coke-fuelled rager with his agent Coppola and the usual gaggle of cool girls at Naples Hotel Paradiso. The day after the match, the Gazeta della Sport, Italy's most prestigious sports newspaper, runs with an extraordinary cover story about Maradonna's freewheeling lifestyle. A dark evil taking hold, it reads,

a mysterious illness affecting the world's greatest player. Its author, a correspondent named Franco Esposito knows Napoli inside out. He'd have known, for example, for years, that Maradona was a drug addict, but held off precisely because of the consequences from Felano, the Ultras and the Camorra. Now it's clear. They've given them the green light to bury Maradonna in public. Subsequent exposés interview drug pushers, pimps, baudello owners. If only half this stuff is true, fan's thing, how the hell does this guy have enough time? to play football, which is exactly what my coach thinks about my writing and podcast comes soon.

The love affair between Napoli and King Diego is well and truly over. And on February 14, 1991, Valentine's Day, ironically, police go public with evidence that Maradonna has been ordering drugs and prostitutes, including the extraordinary taped call from episode one's cold open. One of the women, a Brazilian dancer from Manouse called Susie, goes to public with her story of three nights with the star. He said I was beautiful, the most beautiful she said, modestly. He kissed my lips. He wasn't particularly doting, but he knew what to do. I recall that he particularly liked to suck my big toe. That's, wow. Yeah, that's topical considering

some of the stuff that's been in the news, but also, like, what an amazing quote from a prostitute. Yeah. You know, wow. And do you think she added in the kissing me on the lips thing to, like, sort of bring like you know make maradona look bad in front of it the other italians possibly um aren't you not supposed like you know kind of uh kind of a bit like throw that in there but i guess he knew what to do isn't like the the uh you know that's not the worst thing in the world to say about a man that you've uh you've had sex with i mean that that's the minimum though right that's the absolute minimum is it's pretty damn it's better than he didn't know what to do maybe he was having so much pain he didn't know what he was doing

time that he was just stuck in a big toe to try and get some like gold dust off so he could play football again. I don't know. Maradonna at this point, despite this absolutely devastating quote, is defiant. He'll sue every witness involved in the case, he tells journalists, and quote, give all the proceeds to the poor little children of the streets of Naples. That is, that's quite the financial pipeline from big toe of a Brazilian to poor kids. the following month, Piero Pugliesi strolls into Rome's Palace of Justice and starts

spilling all kinds of beans about match fixing, drug trafficking, and of course, his intimate knowledge of Diego Madonnas sordid private life. Wait, so two things. One, who is he again? And two, this is like, I mean, this is insane, right? He's at war, basically, with the entire city,

including all the organized crime groups there and the media. And this is a city that, like, he was the king of, what, two years before. This is an insane story. Yeah, it's nuts, right? And it's like, this doesn't really come out in any of the documentaries. It's just in a handful of books and like, and not the big ones, like pretty obscure stuff. And, uh, yeah, so like Pouliese, this Piero Puriéro Purié, he is the guy who was like a security guard at the San Paulo Stadium where Napoli play that Maradonna, like, hires as his personal driver, but he's also rumored to be a gunman

for the mob. So not the kind of guy you want to piss off. And he has also at this point just come back from Buenos Aires for that mad wedding where he has tried to be roped into an alleged drug deal for Maradonna's agent who's also working between Latin America and the Camorra at the exact time when the Camorra is like just rising and rising as a global narcotics trafficking organization. It is not tangential. The stuff between Maradona and the mob is it's always. It's always, there. And yeah, like, he's the king. So he just doesn't care. He's just shouting his mouth off. It's nuts. Now they're against it. Like the whole thing is crazy, dude. What an insane story. It's mad. Poliasi, he wants to become a pentito, a turncoat. And the authorities duly obliged,

amazed they've stumbled on such a gold mine of information. He then owns up to a host of gangland assassinations and promises to lift the lid on those pulling the strings in Naples' blood-soaked underworld. He goes into detail about the alleged cocaine smuggling plot from Maradona's Buenos Aires wedding, claiming he'd be paid out of the bank account of Maradona's TV show production company, though less. But other stuff doesn't add up, like Pouliézi's claim that the Argentine squad had smuggled kilos of coke on a plane to play a friendly match against Italy. Or that Maradonna himself had thrown matches in the ill-fated 1987-88 season to bloat the bank balance. of the Camoros Totonero, when anybody could see it was Maradonna who had worked hardest on the

pitch to try to win the league title that year. Guillermo Coppola cuts Maradona loose himself and flees home to Buenos Aires, himself deeply implicated the star's web of drugs, sex and match-fixing. The split, he announces to media, is, quote, purely affable and only temporary, while Coppola adds unconvincingly that, quote, Diego Maradona did not and has never taken drugs. It's like Bill Clinton levels there. Judges call Maradonna in for more questioning later that March to answer questions about the more serious charge of drug trafficking.

Maradonna admits he knows Puli, although the gunman is, quote, certainly not a friend. I mean, he was at your wedding, mate. There was a package, Maradona admits, and the pair did open it together. But it was just newspapers, he says. There weren't any drugs. A month later, Maradona tests positive for cocaine after a match against Puliateam, Bari.

Authorities hand him in immediate suspension. Shortly after, as fans hold vigil outside his home, Maradona slips away and boards a flight for Buenos Aires, claiming it's for his daughter's birthday. But few believe he'll come back. He has fallen as the Italians say, della steli at a stale, for the stars to the stables. Here's Edvaliyami at the Guardian that year. Naples without Maradonna. It's like a deck of cards stripped of both its joker and its aces.

A besieged court robbed of its king and jester. The fans gathered at the Campo-Padideso training ground as though at some sight of wake. During the night, the fallen either had left the city, fleeing the lead and weight of secrets that now eclipsed his genius, secrets which had driven the world's most uncannily brilliant, footballer into exile from the game. In some ways, I've bungled, like all men, Maradonna says.

But my vices are the vices of industrialists and not a few presidents, whom you leave alone. If someone has to pay for all this, then I'll pay. But not Naples, not this wonderful city. It's a pretty dope response, man. Seriously. Yeah, I mean, he speaks really well. But while he's away, and there is a butt, Maradona goes into more detail about the campaign to smear him. I will not report back to training for Napoli because I'm convinced there is a plot against me, my wife, daughters, brothers and parents, which places us in real danger, he says.

As a man and father, I bear the responsibility of defending the greatest treasure I possess, my family. He says there have been vandalism to his Mercedes and the rearranging of furniture at his home, which is a classic warning from the Comorra. The fans are torn. How did you get over the downfall of a man who has carried the spirit of Naples for almost eight years. Some of them are tougher on him than others. Says one to the Guardian, quote, if I saw Maradona trying to climb out of a well, I'd kick him down it, which very specific analogy there, mate. Yeah. And that, barring some minor contract disputes, is the end of Maradona's time in Naples. He officially leaves the club in 1992, taking time out before joining Spanish side Sevilla for a year. He then joined

New Old Boys, Ovarosario in Argentina in 1993, and he spends two years at Argentine Giants Bocca Juniors. This team here. In 1994, Maradona scores a goal against Greece at that year's World Cup in the USA, but he's sent home in disgrace shortly afterwards when he fails a doping test. That same year, information reported by British newspaper The Independent seems to finally back up the claim about Napoli's match fixing in 1988. A reporter there discovers that several Napoli players had been on the Camorra's payroll, throwing games in exchange for drugs and call girls. Almost the entire squad is hauled in front of prosecutors and in some cases their wives and girlfriends,

and is even alleged Guillermo Coppola is instrumental in supplying the stars with cocaine. Coppola, however, is on the run. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.

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The jurors sat in a dark room, hands resting on a Ouija board. They weren't guessing. They were asking the victim who killed them. Sounds unbelievable, right? But it happened. And that's just one of thousands of stories waiting for you on Morning Cup of Murder. Hi, I'm Karina B. Ministurfer. and every single day on Morning Cup of Murder,

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He's only recently been spotted at the Uruguayan report of Punta del Este, having been accused of ordering the murder of a Buenos Aires club owner and suspected drug trafficker. In 1997, age 36, Maradonna's body finally gives out and retires from football altogether. Napoli's fortunes fade with him. They're relegated to the second division in 1998. They go bust and they get relegated to the third division in 2004 before bouncing back. They feel they have had and are bounced, bouncing.

Yeah, anyone's going to get their reference. I don't know. I won't get into the fate of the Comorra during the 1990s too much because we'll definitely do a separate show on the Civil War. Rafaeli Coutolo and his defeat of everybody in his path, including the notorious Mikhaili Zaza, then the rise of the De Lauro clan, which becomes the biggest one in the late 90s and early 2000s. The Giuliano clan that benefits so much from its association with Maradono, though, it continues to be a force in the Forcella and Naples, led by Luigi Giuliano with Carmine, his younger brother. continuing to broker deals on the streets. But in 2000, cops arrest Luigi, and the following year he becomes a pentito,

turning state witness and dishing the dirt on his siblings. Luigi has even dished dirt on the death of Roberto Calvi, God's banker, who we've covered on here a couple of times. This prompts a wave of revenge killings from rival Camoristi, including that of Luigi's son Giovanni in 2006, who'd refused to join Italy's war. Witness Protection Program. Carmine was already dead by then, having succumbed to throat cancer in 2004. But Luigi, age 75, has gone a completely different path with his own vocal cords,

having studied singing in prison and then graduated from the prestigious Toscolano Center in Umbria. The altars of Napoli, they're still singing too, not least this year having won their fourth league title. But the club has never fully shaken its association with the underworld. In 2010, Italian striker Fabio Quiririr, tells media that he was forced to leave the club for Juventus after poison pen letters had been sent, accusing him of links to gangsters, cocaine use and paedophilia. Around the same time, bandits carjacked the club captain and legend Slovak midfielder Madak Hamshik at gunpoint. A 2011 spate of robberies targeted star players and their partners, leading to yet more newspaper articles connecting leading ultras with Camoristi. And they have a point.

So wait, I don't, I don't, I don't get like, if you're an ultra, right, doesn't that mean like you die for your team? But these ultras are targeting the players on their own team for like robberies and crimes? Yeah. Doesn't that like, isn't that? That would seem to go against it. But if you believe the players are just kind of like serving to the club or they're just trying to like rinse you out of money, which I guess most for most stars are, then I guess you can square that circle. But yeah, it's pretty, I don't think so. weird. After an away game in Rome, 200 ultras questioned by cops after trashing a train,

they are found to have links to organized crime, including drug trafficking and robbery. Naples writer Biazio de Giovanni has said that, quote, it appears the mafia is targeting the Napoli players to get a piece of the team as it rises again. So, Scott McTominee, keep an eye out on your tour of Kerala. Subsequent wars have sparked even more police crackdowns, to the extent that today, thanks in part to cops and in part to COVID-19, which shut up thousands of restaurants, bars and hotels used by the Carmorea to wash its drug money,

the clans aren't nearly as powerful or violent as they once were. And the cocaine industry has pretty much been cornered by the Andrangeta in Calabria. Again, if you want to know more about them, I think we've done like three or four shows on them at this point. According to police intelligence, as of last year, Naples is home to just 46 clans with another 24 in the surrounding. in province. And in 20203, there were 10 gangland killings in Calabria compared with 34 in the year beginning mid-2012, which is good news, right? That's that's upbeat stuff. That's what you want to

come on away from these shows feeling. If anyone wants to see something upbeat about Diego Mardona, you should definitely watch Madadona in Mexico from Netflix. It is a mini-series about his short tenure as coach of the Dorados de Sinaloa and Kulia Khan, of all places, home if you didn't know it already to the Sinaloa cartel. He still has that pure passion for the game, the taste of drama and people worship him, although it's clear by that point is an extremely broken man.

Quote, when we heard Maradona was coming, everyone thought the obvious would happen regarding the city's reputation for organized crime, drug trafficking, and Diego's past history, says the Dorados assistant press officer. But he's turned out to be completely

different. He's identified with a city that people thought would be the death of him. Kulia Khan is rescuing Maradona in an unimaginable way. And then he dies the next year, age 60. There was a Buenos Aires court case raging over the details of the star's death, which was in fact a known a couple of weeks ago because the judge appeared in a documentary about it. I'm sure most more stuff will come out since I've written this. But let's pay out with something a little bit more celebratory.

Because honestly, before putting this two part together, I did not know a huge amount about Marriott. Donna. And having wasted half my research time watching YouTube videos about his goals, my God, he was incredible. So as much as it pains me as an Englishman and because someone on the YouTube said that I was like, you know, hurt because of the goal in 86, here is the goal against us, the goal of the century with the commentary from Uruguayan broadcaster Victor Hugo Morales. Do not Instagram your crimes. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes.

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