Pietro Savastano is cleary based on Paolo Di Lauro.

Strange though that the police is almost non-existent in the series...It's supposed to be based on the Di Lauro clan and the separatists Raffaele Amato, Cesare Pagano etc but, while almost all of them are now in jail in real life, in the 2 seasons prominent characters have been only killed, but never jailed for life. The rest of the series is probably realistic, but why reduce the law enforcement role in the whole picture? The fact that both "big" and "small" camorristi go in and out of jail all the time, is one of the key elements of their lives. The fact that the camorra is very difficult, if not impossible to destroy, is not because they are untouchable or anything, but because with every boss who gets arrested, a number of others appear immediately afterwards. It's not even like the Cosa Nostra with a commission as a ruling body, but a lot of clans in a disorganized system, like Bloods and Crips in America. Raffaele Cutolo tried to unify them in one single organization, but the attempt failed anyway. So the fact that the police almost never bothers most of the main characters, isn't a realistic thing imo, would have been better if it had been more present. An interesting series though, apart from that element.

Yo im loving all this discussion and opinions! I just looked at this after posting earlier and I see so many responses. To cabrini I was saying when he told on that shipment it just seemed put of character for him as far as we knew him so far. Of course Im aware there are no rules and most stone cold killers can be rats too. I also agree with Bobby pazzos take on the characters especially

how Gennys alliances are pretty dumbfounding. He is just a clown though really at the end of the day, some people are just mutts it doesnt matter who's kod u are. Also as far as whoever saying pietro ran circles around anyone... Look at the finale lol.

Also, for what its worth if we are lookong for reasons why genny turned on his dad.... Pietro killed prince anyway after prince told him he was with genny against ciro. Pietro is just like fuck it I wanna do it my way. Whats left for Genny to care about at that point

At some point they get noticed, after all in real life it took years before they caught Paolo, the Italian police had no idea that he was one of Naples’s most powerful crime bosses.

@Furio

For sure Ciro did whatever it took to obtain power, but what I didn't like was that he didn't just start his own clan. It's what DiLauro did in real life, as well as the Licciardis, and Raffaelle Amato.

I loved Ciros move, when he went to the boss, who was in business with Don Avatabile ( I think?) and basically said " If you don't do something here, Ima go to war with your connect, kill him, and fuck up all y'all business. So he got these two bosses to put pressure on the Savastanos, not only to NOT war with them from the shadows, but to also supply them with high quality coke. He even put the Savastanos in a position where he took away their autonomy, and made em answerable to the alliance. He was SHREWD ass fuck, and pretty smooth talker too. He really knew how to play the angles...

Pietro, and I think Imma knew ( which is why she tried to Used Ciro to get Conte) that Genny didn't have the cunning of this guy, he woulda out fought her son eventually.....






Also Pietro was right, his Democracy didn't work, and I know he died in the end, but he DID run circles around the Alliance, and they woulda never been able to touch him if Genny doesn't give him up...




And actually I don't think Ciro is Amato, CONTE was based off Amato, the Spaniards... Ciro is the leader of the Seccesionist, the lieutenants in the territory who rebelled...

@ Hollander

I actually think Pietro is a composite of Paolo DiLauro and Pietro Licciardi, just from the way they portrayed his attitude on the show, also it follows the dynamic of the Licciardis, where the woman Maria, became the Boss of bosses, like when Imma held the meeting with the competing clans and told em to fall in line or go to war.

Take this from the book.....


“The Licciardi family transformed what was merely a reservoir of cheap labor into a machine for the narcotics trade: an international criminal business. Thousands of people were co-opted, enrolled, or crushed by the System. Clothes and drugs. Business investments before all else. After the death of Gennaro the monkey, his brothers Pietro and Vincenzo took over the militant side of the clan, but it was Maria, known as ‘a piccerella—la piccoletta or the little one—who wielded the economic power.”

ALSO........


“After the fall of the Berlin wall, Pietro Licciardi transferred the majority of his own investments, legal and illegal, to Prague and Brno. Criminal activity in the Czech Republic was completely controlled by the Secondigliano clan, which applied the logic of the productive outskirts and set out to corner the German market.

(Now recall Pietros interest in Germany....)


“Pietro Licciardi had a manager’s profile, and his business associates called him “the Roman emperor” because of his authoritarian attitude and arrogant belief that the entire world was an extension of Secondigliano”

THIS PERFECTLY DESCRIBES THE PIETRO WE SEE ON THE SHOW, whereas DiLauro has been described as kinda, forgive my adjective, " Gambino-ish".. If that makes any sense.

Also, the DiLauros had no such leadership quandary. He had TEN sons to pass the reigns to.

I agree on the point about the police. It's one of the areas I think The Wire was a little better.

What I hope they get into in the third season what they have conspicuously avoided so far... The ECO-Mafia, ( Garbage and waste Extraction) the AGRI- Mafia ( Food distribution and supply) and what I'm going to call the Haute-Couture Mafia that controls the manufacturing chain of the High Fashion industry. They touched on Construction, but that's corrupt everywhere..


Some good shit...

the mofo killed your mom enuff said....... i with genny until that crap and giving up his father

This is the only defect that can be attributed to the series. in the real life Paolo dilauro and all of his sons went to jail ,same thing for amato but at the end is a fiction like the wire where the Greek for a reason or another manage to avoid the LE.

I agree, but in the Wire what surprised me wasn't even so much that the Greek got away (he was a big crime "tycoon" and a sort of "symbolic" character for international organized crime, so maybe him getting away wasn't illogical), but MARLO STANFIELD getting away! I thought: were they kidding? The rest of the series is realistic, ok, but street thugs like Marlo are expendable material, they go to jail all the time, it's like home to them, he wasn't even smart or low-key. Avon in the 1st season says he has never been to jail and will keep it that way, but even he went to jail after all and probably will stay there for quite some time. But him or especially even more clever types like Stringer, at least are useful for other, more powerful criminals, but who needs people like Marlo, unless they smarten up (and he clearly didn't, which is shown by the last scene we see him in)? Usually, if a "Marlo" appears on the streets and stays there for long without changing behavior, the FBI makes a RICO case, sends a number of gang members away for life or 100 years (basically the same thing), then the gang fights for control until another leader emerges and starts it all over again, until another RICO case sends him away, then the same thing again and again....At least that's the impression I got reading news from the USA: street gangsters go to jail all the time, it's just they are always replaced and their number is too large anyway to imprison them all.

genny is just a clown. The first and maybe last real thing he ever did was give up his dad

My theory is, and this is just my own personal theory, but the creators of the show had a decision to make in regards to the police. Yes, in real life more people went to prison. But in television they need to have an exciting scene or a big moment. So when they come to the point where someone has to go away, it is more exciting for it to climax with offing the person. The negative with this is that there is no coming back from it. Once they're gone, they're gone. So now there is no chance of those people returning to the show. Pietro getting arrested earlier in the show allowed him to return. Now we don't have the curiosity if he'll return... but, boy that was exciting when he got popped by Ciro!