RALPH rides with the two-wheeled cops gearing up against the Mafia.
Naples has the highest crime rate in Italy. Every year, around 70 store owners are murdered, 4000 tourists are mugged and thousands of punters pickpocketed or robbed. It's a place where a bulletproof vest is more handy than a visitor's map.
To fight the criminals who hide in the city's maze of alleyways inaccessible by car, the police formed the Falcons – plainclothes agents who patrol the streets on powerful motorbikes. It's a risky gig that brings them to the door of the Camorra – the Naples Mafia – a bunch of crims who make Tony Soprano look like a florist.
The squad was created in the 1970s as an anti-theft unit. It comprises 60 volunteer agents, all with Casey Stoner-like skills on two wheels, whose basic wage is around $2250 a month.
For them their motorbike is a weapon, a vital element in a job that demands agility, efficiency, speed like a gun and a perfect knowledge of the complex layout of this city.
Plain Assailing
Two men, veterans of the squad (they are approaching 40), have been doing this for 12 years. We’ll call them Totò and Peppino – not only because it's best not to blow their names, but because we reckon it makes them sound even cooler.
"Once I spotted two idiots on mopeds tearing down the street on one wheel, not caring if they hit passers-by," Peppino says. "I stopped them, and forced them to slap one another. They ended up hitting seriously."
At 10.30am, we ride bumper to bumper into Maddalena market, the theatre of operations for vendors of fake cigarettes (the inside is a polystyrene tube with a nail in it to create the right weight), computers and mobile phones filled with salt and rice, and bicarbonate of soda passed off as cocaine.
Smoke' Em Out
Totòand Peppino grab an old acquaintance, and rip the plastic bag he was trying to hide out of his hand. “What have you got there?”
“Nothing, officer.”
Totò pulls out a cigarette, breaks it in half, and little polystyrene balls fly like confetti, while another dozen vendors scatter, cockroach style, beating a hasty retreat.
At 1.45pm, we stop at Louis' bar – the Falcons' preferred after-work hangout. Fat American cops may scoff donuts, but these dudes sip espressos.
"The robbers and the street vendors know too well that the morning shift ends at 2pm and the afternoon one starts at 2.30pm," Totò explains. “So they concentrate their work into that half hour."
To read the full story, buy the August 09 edition of RALPH. On sale now at newsagents.
Should Australia have these crime-busting bikies? Let us know in the comments section below.
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