The Mob Dumps Trash All Over Naples

In 1994, the Italian government declared a waste emergency in Campania, the region around Naples. By 2007, the streets of Naples were piled with garbage, the army had been called in to bulldoze it, and the Prime Minister had fallen from power over the crisis. But the garbage on the streets was only the visible symptom of a much deeper problem: the Camorra, the Campanian mafia, had spent decades turning the region into a dumping ground for toxic and radioactive waste from all over Europe, poisoning the land, the water, and the people.

How the Mafia Got Into the Waste Business

The Camorra, Campania's organized crime group, dates back to the 18th century. By the 1980s, the Casalesi clan had already established monopolies in the concrete and land-moving industries in the region around Naples and Caserta. After the 1980 Irpinia earthquake, 40 billion dollars in reconstruction money flowed into Campania, and an estimated 6.4 billion ended up in mob pockets. This gave the Camorra deep influence over land use and public works contracts.