TAKING ON THE ITALIAN MAFIA - PART 1

INTERVIEW BY TIM SMALL
PORTRAIT BY LELE SAVERI



Roberto Saviano is the 29-year-old author of Gomorrah, the international best seller that, through a mixture of narrative and investigative journalism, exposes the workings of the most powerful, and least known, of the Italian Mafias: the Camorra of Naples.

Over the last 30 years, the Camorra has grown into an all-pervasive, seemingly undefeatable network of vicious killers, loons, and businessmen whose operations account for slightly less than 10 percent of Italy’s gross national product. His book is a powerful indictment of the “System” (as it’s called by its members) and a shocking account of the strength and ferocity of the Southern Italian crime syndicates. Saviano’s success, and his policy of openly stating the names and activities of the members of the Camorra, have made him an obvious target for assassination. He has been living with a 24-hour escort of three policemen who never leave his side for almost three years.

Recently, during the largest-ever anti-Mafia trial in Italian history, the “Spartacus trial,” the defense attorney read a 60-page letter penned by the suspects that openly accused Saviano, the public attorney, and a local journalist of trying to influence the court’s decision. Saviano himself has called the letter “a call to arms... a declaration that states that, were they to be indicted, we are to be held responsible.” In response to this declaration, Saviano came out of hiding to denounce the Camorra once more, on national television.

The day after his appearance on the screens of all Italian living rooms, we met with him for an interview. As we entered the lobby of the drab Milan hotel where we had planned to rendezvous, we were startled by a middle-aged man who quietly appeared at our side, leaned toward us, and asked in a barely audible whisper, “Are you here for Saviano?” We were taken to an undergound room without windows where our bags were opened and checked. Finally, Saviano himself entered the room, where we sat down, drank a glass of water, and chatted for a couple of hours about the Mafia’s power, his book, and his life.

Vice: If you were to explain the Camorra to someone who knew nothing about it, what would you say?

Roberto Saviano: The Camorra is a criminal and entrepreneurial economic organization based in Campania, the region surrounding Naples. I want to stress the entrepreneurial aspect of this organization because Italian organized crime is often viewed romantically, with stories of bandits on the run and honor codes. In reality, these are criminal cartels that do business in every economic sphere, especially in the legal ones, such as textiles, transport, tourism, construction, and waste management. Only after all of that come cocaine, heroin, and extortion. The Camorra is also one of the least-studied crime cartels, even if it is the Italian Mafia that has the largest number of affiliates and that has generated the largest number of deaths. Together with the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta, another poorly visible Mafia, it’s probably the number-one criminal emergency in Europe.

Exactly how powerful is the Camorra?

The net turnover of the three Italian Mafias—the Camorra in Campania, the ’Ndrangheta in Calabria, and the Cosa Nostra in Sicily—is something like $230 billion per year. That’s just their direct business. If you add all the other aspects, you could say they are linked to around $800 billion annually. Consider the $230 billion figure. The FIAT group, Italy’s largest industrial group, has a turnover of around $80 billion a year. In other words, the Mafia is the single largest Italian economy, and one of the largest in Europe. In terms of violent crimes, if you add the number of deaths directly linked to the Mafia in the past 30 years of Italian history, only in the three regions of Sicily, Campania, and Calabria, you can estimate it at approximately 10,000. That’s more than those killed in Gaza in the last intifada. It’s a war.

In your book you do a great job of explaining the international dimension of the Camorra. But the Mafia is seen as something quintessentially Italian. How does that work?

It’s the most annoying stereotype for Italians overseas—the fact that we’re automatically connected to the Mafia. Of course, it’s idiotic. But it is true that the criminal aspect of these organizations was born in Southern Italy. It is there that they begin to extract the first capital, to organize their eventual hideouts, to flesh out their hierarchies. But that’s not where they make money. It’d be impossible. How can you make that kind of money in a poor territory, with 40 percent unemployment? They use the South as a gold mine. They build their empires there by fraudulently channeling EU funds; they use it as a base to stockpile huge quantities of drugs—most of the coke that comes to Europe from Latin America or Africa stops in Southern Italy. From there, it is sent to Milan, Rome, Paris, London, Marseille, and Bonn. This capacity to use Southern Italy as a launching pad for the rest of the world is one of their greatest strengths.

Do they also reach America?

Italian-American Mafias are very weak. Even if the Italian families want to keep that aspect alive, today it’s the Italians themselves who go to America to invest, often with the mediation of the Albanian and Nigerian Mafias—the ones that are structurally closest to the Italians. That’s the funny part: The Italian Mafia has a strong international appeal. Most of the world’s Mafias, besides maybe the Russian and the Chinese, are inspired by it.

Speaking of the Mafia’s international appeal, can you tell me what happened in Helsinki recently?

I went to this huge bookshop to present my book, and it was packed. But my book had only come out the day before, so I knew they couldn’t have been there for me. I asked my publisher, who reassured me they were all my crowd. And then I discovered why. When the host announced me, he said, “Please welcome Roberto Soprano!” I thought he was kidding, but he was just confused. The Sopranos was a huge success in Scandinavia, and all those people thought I had written what the Washington Post defined as “the book about the real, mean Sopranos.” You know, the character Tony Soprano is originally from Campania.


CONTINUED
TAKING ON THE ITALIAN MAFIA | 1 | 2 | 3 |

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