Two murders, power struggles, and the mafia: Inter Milan's other problems

BarcelonaVittorio Boiocchi, the long-time leader of the Curva Nord, the Inter Milan ultras collective, was shot five times in October 2022 outside his home near Milan. He was 69 years old and had known links to the Calabrian Facchineri clan and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. On April 11, two and a half years after the events, Italian police arrested six men linked to a murder that investigators believe was linked to a rivalry to control lucrative activities around the Giuseppe Meazza stadium (the name of San Siro when Inter plays) on match days and over the hierarchy of the Curva Nord.

One of the six arrested was Andrea Beretta, Boiocchi's successor as leader of the Curva Nord, because the police consider him one of the instigators of the murder. In any case, Beretta was already in prison because in early September 2024, he stabbed Antonio Bellocco, one of his trusted men at the head of the Curva Nord gang, twenty-one times to death. Bellocco had previously shot Beretta in the leg. The incident occurred when the two were inside a white car in a parking lot after visiting a gym on the outskirts of Milan. Bellocco was only 36 years old and belonged to one of the illustrious mafia families of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia.

These two murders in two years have marked a before and after in the power struggle of the Curva Nord, have put the spotlight on this group and have allowed the Italian police to advance an investigation that was already underway and that ended at the end of September 2024 with the arrest of a good part of the leadership of the Curva Nord and the Curva Sud, the Milan ultra collective (with whom Inter shares a stadium), which suffered an attempted murder between two of its members in 2019. In total, nineteen arrests. "The investigation forces us to open our eyes to a reality of risks that have been evident for some time now of criminal drift in Italian stadiums," said Giovanni Melillo, the Italian national anti-mafia prosecutor.

"The investigation has decapitated the Curva Nord of Inter. The Curva Nord has had to regenerate itself," explains Pierluigi Spagnolo, a journalist from ARA The Sports Gazette and author of the book I ribelli degli stadi. A story of the Italian ultras movement (Stadium Rebels. A History of the Italian Ultra Movement). "Now, members of the second line of the Curva Nord are taking the reins, wanting to leave the bad life of this group behind and dedicate themselves to supporting their team," he continues. This attitude contrasts with that of previous leaders like Bellocco, who was murdered last September. In a police wiretap that is part of the investigation, he said: "The team [Inter] doesn't matter to me at all. I do things for economic reasons."

80,000 euros a month

The power struggle in the Curva Nord in recent years has been synonymous with the fight for Giuseppe Meazza's business and surrounding areas. "They're divided into four parts: parking, merchandising, food kiosks, and drugs inside the stadium. They amount to millions each season. Furthermore, the fact that this stadium is municipally owned makes it easier for the mafia to break in," a source close to Inter tells this newspaper. There is another police wiretap in which Boiocchi, the Curva Nord boss who was murdered in 2022, commented: "I earn €80,000 a month between parking and other things. That's €10,000 per game."

Also included in the investigation is a police wiretap of a conversation between one of the detainees and Simone Inzhaghi, the Inter coach, in which he demands tickets for the Champions League final. Nerazzurri played against Pep Guardiola's Manchester City in June 2023 in Istanbul. Ticket resale for this match would have generated around 300,000 euros in profit for the Curva Nord.

Inter visits Barcelona

"The Curva Nord doesn't usually cause public order problems when it travels away. I don't think Barcelona will be the protagonist in this regard," explains Spagnolo. This Wednesday, Barça and Inter Milan will play the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals at the Estadi Olimpico Lluís Companys, and UEFA regulations require the home team to cede 5% of the capacity to the visiting team. Thus, Italian fans are entitled to around 2,500 tickets.