mechanisms that contributed to corruption in the municipality. The society's influence was weakened, which was exemplified by the defeat of all of their candidates in the 1901 Naples election. In the early 20th century, given the poverty of Naples and the region, many camorristi emigrated to the United States. The Camorra received another blow with the Cuocolo trial (1911–1912). The trial was ostensibly to prosecute those charged with the murder on 6 June 1906 of the Camorrista Gennaro Cuocolo and his wife, who were suspected of being police spies. The main investigator, Carabinieri Captain Carlo Fabbroni, transformed the trial into one against the Camorra as a whole, intending to use it to strike the final blow to the Camorra. The trial attracted much attention among newspapers and the general public, both in Italy and the United States, including by Pathé's Gazette. The hearings began in 1911. After 17 months, the often tumultuous proceedings ended with a guilty verdict on 8 July 1912 against defendants who included 27 leading Camorra bosses. They were sentenced to a total of 354 years' imprisonment. Enrico Alfano, the main defendant and nominal head of the Camorra, was sentenced to 30 years. The Camorra was never a centralised organisation, but instead a loose confederation of different, independent clans, groups or families. Each group was bound by kinship ties and controlled economic activities that took place in its particular geographic territory. Each took care of its own business, protected its territory, and sometimes tried to expand at another group's expense. There was some minimal coordination to avoid mutual interference. The families competed to maintain a system of checks and balances among equal powers. One of the Camorra's strategies to gain social prestige was and remains political patronage. The family clans became the preferred go-betweens of local politicians and public officials because of their grip on the community. In turn, the family bosses used their political sway to assist and protect their clients against the local authorities. Through a mixture of brute force, political status, and social leadership, the Camorra clans gained ground as middlemen between the local community and bureaucrats and politicians at national level. They granted privileges and protection, and intervened in favour of their clients, in return for their silence and connivance against local authorities and the police. With their political connections, the heads of the major Neapolitan families became power brokers in local and