ROME - Police in Naples arrested the wife of a jailed Mafia boss yesterday, a fresh sign that Italian women have broken through the glass ceiling of the organized crime business.

The woman, Carmela Marzano, whose husband, Luigi Giuliano, was a top boss of a clan inside the Camorra crime network until he was jailed in the early 1990s, appears to have taken over some of her husband's duties in his absence. Marzano was charged with threatening the widow of a rival mobster who wanted to testify against Marzano's son-in-law and two associates who were accused of murdering the woman's husband in 1999. Marzano's daughter, Marianna, was also arrested.

Marano's arrest came only a few weeks after that of a reputedly even more powerful female boss, Erminia Giuliano, the sister of Marzano's husband. Investigators say she took over the Giuliano family crime business after all five of her brothers were arrested. When her arrest was announced, Italy's minister of the interior, Enzo Bianco, called it "a lovely Christmas present for the security of Naples."

But one of Giuliano's chief rivals, Maria Liciardi, remains a fugitive. SHe is the sister and heir apparent of a deceased Camora crime boss who police says leads one of the most violent and entrenched Camorra factions. Locally, Licciardi is known as the Camorra Princess.

The stereotype of the Mafia wife - loyal, deferetial and tight-lipped - began changing when the role of women in organized crime became more prominent, most noticeably as targets ofMafia-style hits as old honor codes protecting women and children broke down.

In 1995, Carmela Santapaola, the wife of a "godfather" in eastern Sicily, was gunned down by two hitmen in her apartment in front of her daughter. She was perhaps the first, most prominent Mafia woman killed for mob-style retribution, but not the only one. As informants began breaking the code of silence in the early 1980s - a time when Italian prosecutors declared war on entrenched organized crime - other taboos also vanished.

The emergence of female bosses is far more noticeable in Naples than in Sicily. Police say that is partially because of cultural differences.

"Family ties are very tight here, and women have always had a far more dominant role in the family here than in Sicily," said Giuseppe Donno, a spokesman for the police in Naples.

This New York Times article appeared in the Democrat & Chronicle January 11, 2001.

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