Maurizio Abbatino

Maurizio Abbatino (Italian pronunciation: [mauˈrittsjo abbaˈtiːno]; born 19 July 1954) is a former Italian criminal, one of the original bosses of the Banda della Magliana, an Italian criminal organization based in the city of Rome, particularly active throughout the late 1970s until the early 1990s. He became a pentito, a collaborator with justice after his arrest in 1992.

Early life

Born and raised in a street in the Magliana neighborhood, Abbatino frequented school at Palestrina (in the province of Rome), staying at the house of his paternal grandmother. Abbatino began committing crimes in the early 1970s, and in 1972 he was arrested for the first time for robbery, resistance to arrest and possession of burglar's tools. Two years later came his second arrest, this time for double murder. In the trial that followed however he was acquitted for lack of evidence and immediately released. In those years, the underworld of Rome was disorganized, with many small groups called batterie, each independent and containing usually 3-4 people, dealing mostly in gambling and robberies. Abbatino's nickname in the underworld has been Crispino, because of his curly, black hair. He had a strong passion for fast cars, and since the beginning proved himself to be a highly capable driver, so much that several batterie regularly employed him as a getaway driver in their robberies for his skills in evading the police. Skilled, but also cold and calculating, Abbatino therefore came to lead — when he was only 21 years old — his own batteria, which consisted of several people that he would later involve in the future project for the Banda della Magliana.