Madonna! Police dismantle cult shrine to slain teenage Naples crime boss

Young members of an organised crime clan in Naples so revered their leader as a godlike figure that when he was killed they put his ashes and a bronze bust of him in a small shrine alongside an image of the Madonna. The worshipping ended on Wednesday when police used steel-cutting equipment to force open the heavily fortified shrine in the courtyard of a building in the centre of Naples, removing Emanuele Sibillo's bust and ashes.

Young members of an organised crime clan in Naples so revered their leader as a godlike figure that when he was killed they put his ashes and a bronze bust of him in a small shrine alongside an image of the Madonna.

The worshipping ended on Wednesday when police used steel-cutting equipment to force open the heavily fortified shrine in the courtyard of a building in the centre of Naples, removing Emanuele Sibillo's bust and ashes. Sibillo was killed by a rival clan in 2015 at the age of 19.

Naples police released a video of their intervention, intended to send a signal to the clan, whose members forced extortion victims to bow before the bust of the bearded Sibillo in a solemn act to consecrate their bond to the crime group. "Shops and pizzerias in central Naples were at the mercy of extortions, intimidation and violent actions," police said in a statement.

Police also arrested 21 people suspected of belonging to the Sibillo clan of the Camorra, the Naples-area version of the Sicilian Mafia. They were charged with association with organised crime, extortion, receiving stolen goods, drug-dealing, exploitation of prostitution and possession of firearms.

"The removal of the shrine and the erasing of graffiti praising him (Sibillo) is a hard blow to the Camorra," said senator Sandro Ruotolo, a former anti-Mafia journalist. Sibillo was the inspiration for the book "La Paranza dei Bambini" about child and teenage gangsters in Naples written by anti-Mafia journalist Roberto Saviano, author of "Gomorrah," an international bestseller about the Camorra. (Writing by Philip Pullella and Angelo Amante, editing by Estelle Shirbon)