Italy's Bloodiest Mafia This World

This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find

Hear nothing. See nothing. Say nothing. Those three things will

That is the code of Italy's most violent mafia. The Camorra. And

this is where its grip is strongest. Naples, a city in the heart of

Europe. Its brutality is notorious. It's killed more people than the

IRA. It stands for death, terror, trauma, blood and tears. But as

senior insiders, who have never spoken publicly before tell me, the

power of the Camorra clans is all- pervasive. Take away the word

Naples and leave the word Camorra. It's the city of the Camorra!

organised crime syndicate rakes in billions by poisoning its own

backyard with toxic waste. And the Camorra's polluted Naples politics.

It used to be that the Camorrista would knock on the politician's

door for favours. Today in this city it's the politician who needs

the Camorrista. The Camorra has more blood on its hands than

Sicilly's infamous mafia. What will Four year old Francesco is too

young to know it but his mother Simona di Monte is a prosecutor.

The police fear that her enemies could strike at any time. This is

Naples in 2011. Not Colombia. But Simona lives under 24 hour armed

police protection. Ciao Franci! Ciao.

She needs protecting because she's a top anti-Camorra prosecutor here

and Naples' home-grown Mafia thinks nothing of targeting those who

stand in its way. Protection is granted to prosecutors who are seen

to be at the forefront of fighting against organised crime. I don't

feel in danger but it's not for me to decide. It's part of the rules

of the game. I knew when I accepted this job that I would need

The main reason why I chose to do what I do was to understand

properly why our land is sick with this cancer, the Camorra. It

suffocates this region and makes it Bringing to justice many of Italy's

most notorious gangsters is all in a day's work for Simona. Today

she's prosecuting an extortion case. The Camorra is made up of scores of

competing clans and the man behind the glass is alleged to belong to

one of the most powerful which Simona has helped bring to its

knees. Her star witness is the Carabinieri's Lieutenant Colonel

Fabio Cagnazzo. One of the region's best detectives in the fight

The two clan bosses are now in jail after more than a decade on the run.

This prisoner may soon join them. He's facing up to 26 years in

The Camorra creates slaves. A person's only way out is either to

give evidence against them. Or to The Camorra is interested in

anything that makes money. It has the Midas Touch, able to transform

anything into money. Legal or The Camorra is like a net over this

That net is invisible to outsiders who see only a beautiful city in

the lee of Mount Vesuvius. Set on the Bay of Naples, it's a magnet

for tourists. Neapolitans are renowned for their gregarious

nature and expressive love of life. But there's another side to the

city. If you know where to look. The grim estates of north Naples

where the grip of organised crime is total. With addicts openly

shooting up after buying heroin My name is Mark Franchetti. I was

born in Italy but haven't lived here for 25 years. Growing up in

Italy I became used to hearing Camorra stories. Naples is so

inured to the Camorra that it even has newspapers like this one which

specialise in crime. Every day the Cronache di Napoli reports the

latest shootouts, arrests and courtroom revelations. A daily

reminder of the Camorra's enduring But Neapolitans don't call it the

Camorra. They call it Il Sistema. The System. The System isn't one

organisation with a single Godfather, like Sicily's Cosa

Nostra. It's a series of competing, often warring, criminal clans who

The first time that I heard the word Camorra was when it took my

mother away. Alessandra Clemente had a happy childhood in Naples.

Until the Camorra blighted her life. Her mother was shot dead in 1997,

caught in the crossfire of a Clan shoot-out. You know the horrible

thing is that I remember everything. Really well. Really well. I was

playing a game. I heard some noises, thought maybe a scooter had crashed

in the street. We lived on the ninth floor of our building, high

up. Then I went to the balcony and saw my mum on the floor hurt. I ran

down the stairs, didn't wait for the lift. Then I remember being in

the arms of some nice people who wouldn't let me go into the road

and I let them stop me. My mum was only 39. She was a beautiful woman

with a love of life. I had the first ten years of my life with her

Silvia Ruotolo was killed here in front of Alessandra's little

Does your brother remember anything about it? I've never been able to

find out what he remembers from Alessandra still lives in Naples

with her brother, now 19, and their She is studying law and her

ambition is to become a prosecutor taking on Camorra cases. My mother

tragically died because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The decision I have made to study law helped me understand that there

shouldn't be such a thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong

time. We have a right to live in a better city than this. Why should I

accept the way in which my mother Alessandra's commitment is

impressive, but she's up against This clip from a CCTV camera gave

Neapolitans a rare insight into how the Camorra meets out justice. The

man on the left of the picture has only seconds to live. His assassin

in the baseball cap coolly walks past him into this shop before

committing murder in broad daylight The passers by move away quickly.

Witnesses are hard to come by in a I've come to meet a man who knows

what it's like to use a gun in anger for the Camorra. Salvatore

Striano says he's never killed anyone but admits to pulling the

My gun was indispensable and I couldn't do anything without it.

The first time I held one I knew I had something strong and powerful

in my hands. I felt I could defend my family with it. I felt protected.

Salvatore became a Camorrista when he was still a teenager. He comes

from Naples' Spanish Quarter. One of the oldest Camorra strongholds

in the city centre. As he takes me around he reveals its hidden

sinister side. I was born there. That's my balcony.

That's where my mother would wait for me when I came back from my

dangerous exploits. There's a bullet hole. And there's another

Here, we're entering "the tunnel of the dead". It's called that because

in this street there have been more than ten murders between rival

families. On this street? Yes. Once you go in you don't stand a chance

These men may look as though they are just hanging around one of

Naples' most picturesque streets. In fact, they are lookouts for a

nearby Camorra drug dealer. And if you see scooters parked like this

and no-one's watching them, that's because no-one has to. Nobody would

ever steal them because everyone knows who they belong to. So people

know that they shouldn't steal them? Absolutely they know it. They

The Camorra has been a blight on Naples for more than a century.

Over the decades, local bandits transformed themselves into one of

the world's most feared organized crime networks, making money from

loan sharking, prostitution and But it wasn't until it started

dealing in illegal drugs that it became truly rich. I'm off to the

see the epicentre of the drugs trade. The housing estates of

northern Naples where investigators believe more drugs are sold at

street level than anywhere else in Europe. And the Camorra is behind

Using a camera openly here is out of the question. I could enter

unchallenged only with the help of a local contact. Taking this secret

footage risked swift retribution. The area is home to numerous drug

piazzas as narcotics sales points are known. These are the lookouts

who alert the drug runners at the These are the customers. Although

victims might be a better way of putting it. Shooting up underneath

a half-built flyover. The ground is littered with syringes. Which you

can buy across the counter in the And these are the Camorra dealers.

The expensive wheels are the giveaway. They rule estates like

this where no outsider can venture. I wanted to talk to an insider. For

years this man ran a drug piazza. The former drug dealer has now left

the Camorra but would still talk to us only on condition that his

identity was concealed. How much money can a piazza

generate in a day? Total income? It depends. A small piazza can

generate 30,000 or 40,000 Euros a day. And a big one? Lots of money.

I've heard people talk about drug piazzas making a million and a half

Euros in one week. This dealer is bringing his boss

the morning's takings. According to prosecutors, as much as half a

million Euros' worth of drugs are sold by the camorra in this part of

Naples every day. Most striking is that each piazza works like

clockwork. Day and night. There are 12 people working doing eight-hours

shifts. There are four lookouts on the outside and four lookouts in

the inside. Then there are another two people who frisk anyone coming

in. One person who takes the money and another giving out the

merchandise. Then there is, say, the runner who takes the drugs to

the piazza. You never get to know where the drugs runner gets his

supply from. Even the people who work there don't know. Then there

is the capopiazza, the boss, who manages the day to day running of

Police raids like this one on Camorra drug piazzas are

commonplace. There were two when I The drug dealers put up barriers to

buy time to escape. The police have to call in the fire brigade to cut

It doesn't take long for drugs to be found. These phials are coded in

the colours of the Italian flag. The white ones contain heroin, the

green, crack, and the red ones, The drug dealers are used to raids

like this. And only a few hours later they will be up and running

again. And the people who live here are used to the drug dealing but

they're scared, so there's nothing they can do about it.

The Carabinieri have to settle for three foot soldiers. But raids like

this don't faze the dealers. Who controls this area? Not the state.

So who does control this place, then? The Camorra.

But drugs aren't the only money earner. Just as lucrative is

extortion. The man arriving in this car makes mattresses. Hardly a life

But he needs armed police bodyguards around the clock. Very

few businessmen have shown as much determination to stand up to the

Camorra as Pietro Russo. One day in 2003 the Camorra came calling in

his small town close to Naples. They said that I had to give them

50,000 Euros straight away and then 15,000 every Easter, Christmas and

August summer holiday. The Camorra can be very persuasive.

This is what happened when the owner of a gaming arcade crossed it

so Pietro couldn't just ignore the demands. So I went to the clan and

sat down at the table with the boss. He told me that I had until

Christmas to pay up. What the boss didn't know was that Pietro was

secretly recording the meeting. Then he went to the chief of the

local Carabinieri police. But the response was not what he'd expected.

He said it wasn't a lot of money and I had a factory and a family.

He said the police wouldn't be able to guarantee my safety for more

than five days. So he advised me to Pietro felt he had to start paying.

But he still fought back when the I wanted to make the payments in

here so that I could secretly film the whole transaction. I hid the

camera in a corner of this office, sat down and I counted out loud the

money on this desk. Then he counted it all, put it in his pocket and

left. And where was the camera? hid it over there near the helmet.

But I didn't have to try very hard to hide it because the people they

send to do this job are not the brightest.

The evidence Pietro gathered at great personal risk put 36 members

of one of the Camorra's most infamous clans, the Casalesi,

behind bars. Including local boss Augusto Bianco. At the trial some

gave me the sign of the cross as in as much to say that they wanted me

In Naples, they have a saying. A Camorrista's life leads to either

the sound of the funeral bell Not much of a choice. So why do the

Camorra never seem to run out of In part because so many were born

in places like this. Le Vele. Built as a jewel of urban development,

it's now one of the bleakest places to live in Italy. Here, it's easy

to view crime as the good life especially if you're offered more

money than you've ever dreamt of earning. The former drug dealer did.

How much could you earn a month? 4,000 Euros a day. You mean 400

Euros, one person? Yes. How did you spend the money? Night life. Women,

gambling. It gives you all this. Some people would use drugs. When

you were small how did people view the Camorristi? You could tell them

apart from other people by the way they dressed, their cars and their

motorbikes. They had many more things than ordinary people. Little

wonder the Camorra is romanticised. The music is called neo melodici

and most Camorristi are big fans. This song idolises the life of a

clan member on the run from the Young men who are attracted by that

lifestyle usually end up here. This is Nisida. Naples' juvenile

detention centre. A place where most future Camorra members

eventually do time. Nisida is a place of very special significance

for one young woman. This mural lists the names of every innocent

victim of organised crime in Italy, including the mother of Alessandra

Clemente, Silvia Ruotolo. And one of the men convicted in her killing

served time here while still a teenager. Alessandra comes here

often. I go to Nisida because I want to tell those boys the story

of my mother. I want to give them an extra reason to change their

lives and not become, once they're out, like the boy who killed her.

Alessandra has got to know some of these young men very well. We

aren't allowed to reveal their identities or the crimes they've

committed. But they are keen to explain to us why they think

But most important, crime here runs Today Alessandra has brought

someone special she wants them to Antonio Prestieri is Camorra

Royalty. His father is a convicted murderer, drugs trafficker and clan

boss. But Antonio has kept out of places like Nisida by rejecting his

father's lifestyle from the very start despite his roots. Four out

of five of my primary and secondary school teachers showed me respect

just because of my surname. To them it embodied terror.

Antonio's father is Tommaso Prestieri. He served more than 20

years in jail whilst Antonio grew up in the grim suburb of

This is the district where my father lived, where he still has

his flat. Where? In this building? On the eighth floor. You might say

that this is one of the lairs of the family. In the tourist guides

this area's marked red. You can't come in here. Why? Because it's

dangerous? You bet it's dangerous. How do you explain that your father

chose to bring you into the world here when he could afford to live

in a nicer area in a villa, for instance? I think that they know

that if they go out of their own little world, they wouldn't be

anybody. Antonio's not only rejected his

father's life of crime. He's rejected the proceeds too. For my

18th birthday, out of the blue, he sent one of his men with a very

expensive watch. And this guy told me, "This is the gift from your

father". I sent it back. I let my father know that this is a world

that leads nowhere. If I could, I'd bash some sense into my father. But,

despite everything, I believe there is some good in him, that he cares

This statue of Jesus Christ was commissioned by my father. He's

very religious, which is a real contradiction, but he put up this

statue here and erected others around so that the people in this

building would have a place of peace and quiet they could retreat

Today Antonio Prestieri is making a new life for himself as a talented

playwright and performing musician, determined that his Camorra lineage

But Naples has been scarred by the The Camorra is Italy's bloodiest

mafia. 3,000 people have been killed in the last 30 years mostly

in turf wars. And the killing shows no sign of abating. A few hours

before I visited this area, two men were gunned down in a barber's shop

close to where we were filming. Some of the dead are innocents

caught in the crossfire but most of them are Camorra members from

warring rival clans. My source, the Camorra drug dealer, will never

forget the time his clan went to war. It was very ugly because you

couldn't leave the house for fear of being killed. It wasn't easy.

From one day to the next you wouldn't know who your friends were.

When you went out, did you go armed? Yeah, they'd take us to

waste land. They'd make us ride motorbikes and while one of us was

steering the bike the other would practice standing up and shooting.

Turf wars are so frequent because of the way Naples is divided into

so many Camorra clans. Territories like this throughout the Naples

region are carved up between more than 70 clans. And when Camorristi

clash, they often reach for the gun. We'd come out, five or six of us at

a time, armed. You mean with guns in your hands? You bet. Around here,

you don't have time to take your gun out and load it. So you had

your guns like this? Yeah, you had to keep pointing them at people all

the time. Most of the time you shoot to intimidate people.

Sometimes, even if you didn't mean to get them you did. There were

A feature film, Gomorrah, chronicled the turf wars. The cast

included Salvatore, now living a new life as a professional actor,

Brutality like that is all too familiar for Antonio Prestieri.

This is Monterosa, where all of my family used to live. And at this

bar on the 18th May 1992 they killed my two Uncles. They called

it the Monterosa Massacre. In the wake of these killings,

Antonio's father and surviving uncle were left to run the family

clan. And act as Camorra generals The hours of darkness held

particular perils for Antonio when he feared death just because of his

During the turf wars, when everyone was killing each other, there would

be these nights after rehearsals where I'd walk down the street,

hear the sound of a motorbike and be terrified. And all because I

bore my father's name, which made And I would simply hope that they

would shoot me in the back so I wouldn't have to stare death in the

face. I lived with that fear Italy has not one but three police

This is one of a series of co- ordinated police raids taking place

tonight. This time by the state Tonight, I see with my own eyes

what success for the authorities looks like. Many of the big clan

leaders are in jail for life after being picked up in police raids

like this. But with a constant supply of new recruits ready to

take their place it's a never ending battle. Tonight the Polizia

This man is facing a lengthy sentence on charges of extortion

and being a Camorra member. But the authorities have an even more

powerful weapon against the Camorra. Supergrasses, known here as pentiti.

Camorristi who turn informants as part of a plea bargain. No one

knows better than them where the bodies are buried - literally. This

top Camorrista gave evidence against his own brother - this man,

the father of Antonio Prestieri. father got life for murder. How did

you feel about the fact that your uncle has betrayed and accused his

own brother? It felt very strange, because I would never think of

betraying my own sister, my own blood. But, on the other hand, what

can you expect from people who have Very few members of the Camorra are

prepared to shed light on its secret inner workings, but I'm on

my way to meet a high-ranking Camorra insider. It took weeks of

negotiation to get him to talk and even then he only agreed on

condition that his identity be concealed. He was a racketeer, but

says he's now out of the organisation that locals call il

Sistema. I liked living a life of crime. I still like it.

racketeer joined the Camorra during his first stretch in prison.

make a blood pact. I first cut myself and then so did my sponsor

and then his sponsor. And all the blood flows together. You make this

blood pact on the Bible. You swear on the Bible? Yes. You swear on

being faithful to the boss and the whole organisation. So you have to

keep your mouth shut and if you don't they will shut it for you.

That's the omerta, the code of silence. There are things you can't

even tell your wife or family. From then on you start to specialise.

And what did you specialise in? Extortion. That was my speciality.

At that time the very sound of my name would make people tremble and

pay up. If someone refused to pay, who would decide what to do, was it

you? I was the area boss, so it was up to me. A bit of intimidation,

burn a few cars, destroy part of a factory, but we wouldn't kill

anyone. But there wasn't that much need for it, because everyone paid.

Crossing the Camorra can have dire consequences. When this group of

Camorra thugs came to a bowling alley to intimidate its owner, they

brought a can of petrol. The same methods were used against Pietro

Russo's mattress factory after he'd testified against those who'd

forced him to pay up. I saw the flames from a distance. It was a

ball of fire, there wasn't a centimetre where you didn't see

flames. And you understood straight away that it was the clan?

couldn't be anyone else. The fire in 2008 completely gutted his

factory. Pietro would still not be cowered. He rebuilt it and it's now

producing mattresses again. But it's not quite business as usual.

This is one of the bags which we always used before I reported the

Camorra. But after that, I couldn't use it anymore because our name was

written on it and if we used it we wouldn't be able to sell any more

mattresses. Not round here. So now we use unmarked bags. Just because

people are scared? Because people are scared. Even before the fire,

the Camorra threats against Pietro were so serious that he'd been

given a round-the-clock armed police guard. I've seen a long

queue of people lining up around a courtyard, business people I knew,

all waiting their turn to pay protection money. It was like a

line of people waiting at the post office to pay their bills. When

Pietro refused to join that line, life became very lonely. From the

moment I reported the Carmorra, all my friends started avoiding me.

They were scared even of being in the same car as me. You start

feeling like you're a leper. stress even broke up his marriage.

Do you feel you are paying a very high price for your decision?

freedom. Pietro turned to this anti-racketeering organisation for

help. Alessandra Clemente has recently begun volunteering here.

It's a centre which provides support and legal advice for those

who have been targeted by the Coming here is interesting, I learn

how you can help someone who rrts - reports cases of exor theion. In

this city a place like this is important. People who have found

the courage to again against it need to have that spark kindled. If

you don't have a place like this, that spark will die out. Because it

is a very hard road to go down alone. Over the past few years, the

Camorra hasn't only extorted money from business, it's also gone into

business - making more money with less risk by appearing to go legit.

Camorra Inc is a field in which prosecutor Simona di Monte

specialises. For the Camorra, it's much better to launder money which

comes from drugs and from racketeering by reinvesting it into

the world of business. There are now entire sectors of business that

are controlled by the Camorra. In the area where I work, for instance,

which has a very strong textile industry, the Camorra has gone into

the textile business. In another area which is famous for mozzarella,

the Camorra goes into cheese-making businesses. It damages the free

market, because a Camorra business has no cash flow problems and can

sell at a cut price. And so it completely destroys competition. It

is Camorra Inc. On bread, on wine... Plastic bags, paper bags, meat -

everything. Where there's business there's the Camorra. So if I stay

here in Naples for a month, is it possible not to end up paying money

to the Camorra? It's not possible. The Camorra is into drugs,

racketeering and business. It's also into this, waste. Every few

months the city drowns in it. The locals blame the politicians and

organised crime. At times there are thousand of tons of household

rubbish on Naples' streets - even down by the bay. The crisis is so

bad that the city has been under a state of emergency for the last 17

years. And that's just the way the Camorra likes it. The emergency

status brings public funds and the clans are experts at tapping into

them. The bigger the river of state money, the greater the

opportunities for embezzlement by the Camorra - which investigators

say has muscled in on some of the waste companies. There's an acute

shortage of official landfill in the region, but nobody in Naples

wants rubbish dumped near them: it could be deadly. These

demonstrators are angry about illegal dumping at a local public

tip which is supposed to be used for domestic refuse. Lorries - some

owned by Camorra-front companies - are taking the garbage to the tip

and the protestors' biggest fear is that they're also dumping poisonous

toxic waste. They're killing us with waste and the politicians

aren't protecting us. We're in a really bad way. We're getting ill.

The Camorra isn't just boys going around on the streets with guns.

The Camorra is much more subtle than that. Most Neapolitans agree

but these protesters are determined to do something about it. Later at

the public tip they check every lorry. They don't trust the local

inspector here to keep out illegal Finally, some of the lorries are

turned away. The land of the Naples region, Campagnia, has been fabled

for its fertility since Roman times. For generations, the fields around

here have kept the people of southern Italy nourished. But the

Camorra has raked in billions by illegally dumping toxic waste on

this land. Some farms have had to be abandoned altogether.

Environmental campaigner Raffaele del Giudice agreed to show me the

scale of the devastation. The deadlier the cargo the more

lucrative - much of it transported hundreds of miles from Italy's

industrial North and even from abroad. This is industrial waste -

filters, oil, waste from iron foundries, tyres. I was born here.

This is the land where I used to play. There were farmers here - my

relatives, my grandfather. Then they were chased away and under

here they dumped toxic waste. All of a sudden, some of the farm

labourers who worked in this area started having problems with their

hands, bad throats, blisters. As a result of all the dumped waste,

even mice were dying. This is all in the findings of an official

inquiry. To add insult to injury, acres of land polluted by the

Camorra's poisonous waste has been used by the state to stockpile

mountains of domestic rubbish. It's bundled up and dumped in bales on

top of toxic waste sites. Here they stretch as far as the eye can see -

tens of thousands of waste bales. We're in this area here look, 15

square kilometres, and there are 43 waste dumps here, legal and illegal.

So who controls things here? Here the Camorra's very strong. Naples

lies in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius - an active volcano. This

road was built to quickly evacuate thousands of people the next time

Vesuvius erupts - which sooner or later it will. But work on the

escape route has stopped before it could be finished because the

Camorra dumped tons of toxic waste - including asbestos - in its

foundations. Prosecutor Simona di Monte, who is investigating the

case, took me there. It's expensive to dispose of industrial waste. The

Camorra can do it at a knockdown price because it dumps it illegally

in fields, disused quarries and under roads like this one. On paper,

the waste looks as though it was disposed of but in fact it was only

hidden. In making its billions, the Camorra has destroyed countless

livelihoods - and even lives. I went to see these two farmers on

the outskirts of Naples. When I used to come here with my grandad,

you could drink the ground water. You could scoop it up with a

cauliflower leaf. Now it's all poisoned. Mario Cannavacciuolo and

his son, Allessandro, used to graze sheep on this land. Then something

sinister began to happen. Day after day we noticed more and more of the

animals' heads were deformed and they had growths all over their

bodies. Our animals started dying and when they started dying our

herd was destroyed. And when that happened the authorities sequested

everything. 2,000 sheep were slaughtered by order. The farmers

claim they had been poisoned by illegally-dumped deadly dioxins.

First time round it said that the Dioxin level was 13 parts per

trillion. And what should it be? Three. Then my brother got sick.

And the doctor took blood samples. My brother's sample showed 255

parts per trillion Within 40 days there was nothing we could do. He

was eaten away. What did he die of? He was riddled with cancer. He was

eaten up by it. There is no conclusive evidence to back their

claims, but Italy's national research council has found that

cancer rates in this part of the country are significantly higher

than average. A company produces the toxic waste. It has to dispose

of it somewhere but to do that you need hell of a lot of money. So it

gets in touch with politicians, and the politicians go to the Camorra

who in turn go to people who can dump it on their behalf. It's all

connected. It's all one delinquent organisation. Dumping on this scale

has even stretched the cynicism of the Camorra. There was a summit.

And someone with a tiniest amount of conscience said "Look, we are

poisoning everything around here, even the water". And the boss

answered, "What do we care? We drink mineral water." As you see, I

drink bottled water, not water from the tap. Why? Because they've

poisoned everything here. Well not everything around here is poisoned.

Naples' mains water has not been polluted and look at this Camorra

pizza. All the ingredients here are of the highest quality. They're

Tonight Alessandra Clemente and her family have come out to this anti-

Camorra restaurant for a special feast a few days before her

This restaurant was created in a property once owned by people who

became rich from drug trafficking, murders and racketeering. It sends

the strongest possible message in the fight against the Camorra and

organised crime because you're hitting the Camorra in its pocket.

I simply won't accept that things have to stay as they are and that

we must resign ourselves to them. Naples' Camorra crisis is no longer

just a local issue. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised to clamp

down on the Camorra when he was elected three years ago. And to

But three years later the rubbish is still on the streets of Naples.

And the Camorra is still here. Some politicians have been accused of

working with the Camorra - including this man, Nicola

Cosentino. He's the leader of Mr Berlusconi's party in this region

and six months ago they came to He's in court after a supergrass

alleged that he'd enjoyed links to a Camorra company which illegally

disposed of toxic waste but Cosentino vehemently denies the

charges. After the hearing, I found him at the courthouse coffee bar.

Abroad you often hear people say that the Camorra could not exist

without political support. That it could never have survived to many

years without it. I agree, but you need to address this question to

those who have been control in Campania for the last twenty years.

In the last 20 years there has been a centre-left party in power.

You've got to ask them how the Camorra has expanded here. Don't

ask those who have always been in opposition and today have to defend

themselves from accusations. Sure, but if you say the Camorra always

does business with those in power; this would now apply to you since

you're now in power. Well, we have been in power now for six months,

and we are still formulating our plan of action and then we will

address this issue. But I also think that no government has taken

on organised crime like the Berlusconi government. But the

sobering reality is that even clan leaders languishing in jails like

this one can pull the political strings round here. This is Naples'

notorious Poggeriale prison. Almost every Cammorista ends up being

locked up here sooner or later. Prosecutor Simona di Monte has just

been in to interrogate a Camorra suspect. It's essential for the

Camorra to have links with politicians, both at a local and a

national level. The Camorra needs the politicians to look after its

interests when they award public contracts. And of course they're

able to do this because they control their territory and their

communities. Even from prison, the Camorra leaders say who their

preferred candidate is. The Camorra racketeer knows exactly how it can

work when organised crime decides to dabble in politics. Before the

election, the candidate will visit the head of the clan, the local big

'boss', and he'll say, "Listen, you'll have to get me elected." So

if there's a thousand voters, you need to secure five or six hundred

- sometimes with a gift, sometimes you pay their electric bill. Or you

give them some cash. How did you check on the people who've voted?

With mobile phones. They used to take a picture of the ballot paper

and show you outside until it was banned. But you go to the families

who have absolutely nothing and for a hundred Euros they'll give you

their vote. Who does the Camorra do deals with? With whoever is in

power. So the clans wouldn't do deals with the opposition? No.

Because those with no power have nothing. Of course most politicians

here do not have links to organised crime. The Camorra relies on the

corrupt ones. But in this troubled city it also often gets support

from a surprising quarter - the public themselves. Not least

because the Camorra is perceived as being far more efficient than the

state. The Camorra does not put itself into open conflict with the

state. It's more like a woodworm It takes the place of the state and

it's all the more credible because it's able to offer the same

services as the state in direct competition. In the Camorra

stronghold of Le Vele, take this football pitch, for instance.

According to residents here it's not courtesy of the local authority,

it's a gift from a clan boss. field for instance, the law,

everyone knows that you can get "justice" from the Camorra. State

justice is slow and its outcome is uncertain. Camorra justice is

immediate, you can't appeal against it. And it's very certain. If a

drug addict goes and robs someone, the Camorra takes that person and

makes them give back the money and the goods they've stolen. So even

the police have to work less. if the Camorra's hold is so far-

reaching, can Naples ever be free of it? One man who cut himself

loose is the former Camorrista who became an actor. Every Camorrista

has a bag full of arms, four or five guns, his rifle and machine

gun. I gave them my arms as a present and then they finally

understood that I had abandoned their world and I didn't want

anything to do with it any more. Today is graduation day for

She needs the top mark of 110 to give her a really good chance of

Her father, brother and grandparents have all come to share

this emotional moment. Also there to offer his good wishes is the man

from the other side of the tracks but with very similar ideals,

It's the most significant moment of my life and I'm with the people who

mean the most to me. I dedicate it to my Mum. As an Italian I find it

shaming that the Camorra should still have such a grip in a

European democracy. But its roots are so deep-seated that, like many

here, I struggle to imagine Naples without it. Few people can -

whichever side of the law they stand on. Take away the word Naples

and leave the word Camorra. It's the city of the Camorra! It's

difficult if not impossible to imagine Naples without the Camorra.

But without the Camorra, Naples would be the most beautiful city.

But if Naples is to stand any chance of ridding itself of the

Camorra, IT desperately needs young idealists like Alessandra and

Antonio. One day I can see my city without crime. I can see it free

and see how beautiful it is. Because this is one of the most