Raffaele Cutolo, mafia boss who ruled from prison cell, dies aged 79

Feared head of Neapolitan Camorra known as the Professor' had spent most of life behind bars

Raffaele the Professor" Cutolo, one of the most feared and powerful bosses of the Neapolitan Camorra, spent most of his adult life in jail. And it was in a prison bed on Wednesday that he was found dead, aged 79.

His imprisonment didn't deter him from ordering murders, forging criminal ties and sparking a war that left several hundred people dead in the early 1980s. Cutolo, whose life inspired films and songs, transformed his prison cell into his criminal office, from where he recruited thousands of members into the Camorra who, once freed, committed murders on his orders.