Giovanni Tagliamento has lived for the past eleven years on the French Riviera, where he is considered by the Italian justice authorities to represent the Neapolitan Mafia the Camorra in their French operations. Last month he was arrested by French police on suspicion of the illegal trafficking of spirits, and placed in preventive custody. Hélène Constanty reports on a man nicknamed the 'Little Spider’.
When Giovanni Tagliamento was arrested recently on the French Riviera, he had just celebrated his 60th birthday and had been living in France in relative tranquillity for eleven years. He was picked up by the French authorities on the way back from San Remo, northern Italy, and is now under investigation for conspiracy to defraud, criminal association and smuggling.