An avowedly anti-mafia politician in one of Italy's most infamous mafia fiefdoms a local priest who had taken a stand against the Camorra was shot in the head while preparing for mass Natale was one of the first on the scene and remembers "his body on the floor and conflicting instincts inside him that urged him on the one hand to flee and through testimonies of jailed state witnesses that local bosses had had a similar plan for him: not another execution-style killing targeting Natale on the bike he liked to use to ride around the town the local clan found a more prosaic way of ridding itself of the troublesome mayor enticing three councillors from his majority to swap sides dispatching his administration almost as quickly and efficiently as its many human victims "The Camorra decided to bring that to an end," says Natale "But it could not bring to an end the hopes and dreams that were growing in the meantime." more than 20 years after he was first elected Natale is once more the "first citizen" of Casal di Principe his feared and fearful hometown north of Naples a place of which he was once quoted as saying: "Here being mayor means getting up in the morning and making the sign of the cross." Earlier this month after a campaign in which he vowed to pursue the town's "dream of normality" he won 68% of the vote in a runoff and was taken on a victory procession through the streets supporters erected a banner declaring: "Here Asked by a journalist if he had a message for the town's criminal element bespectacled doctor took the megaphone and yelled without hesitation and with the passion of a vengeance long in the making: "Vaffanculo." Fuck you News of Natale's election spread far beyond the boundaries of Casal di Principe whose 21,000 residents have seen the town council dissolved for mafia infiltration three times since 1991 The loudest support came from Roberto Saviano which brought the misdeeds of the Camorra to international attention in 2006 and who is himself a son of the town – a place "Casal di Principe is in a new era," he tweeted "The victory of Renato Natale is a rebirth and failure could squander political capital built up over 20 years yet Natale is optimistic about his town's future a new dawn for the town labelled Gomorrah by the Italian press sitting in the office of the association he founded in 1994 to provide medical assistance to immigrants "Even if some of these declarations in the media are stretching it a bit There really is a new wind blowing in the town The first thing everyone … did was congratulate me From the litter lying at the side of the streets to the haphazard residential construction from the electrical wires sprouting out of crumbling walls to the fetid For years the town's political apparatus was a plaything of the local Camorra clan which at its height was arguably the most powerful and violent syndicate within the notoriously powerful and violent Neapolitan mafia At least two of Natale's predecessors as mayor have been convicted of mafia-related crimes He sees his re-election – this time with a resounding majority – as a sign that things have started to change But now the pressure is on to deliver – not easy when the council is insolvent Natale has already asked the government in Rome for help professor of criminology at the University of Oxford is also wary of overplaying Natale's transformative potential "To see organised crime as an issue of people – as bosses who are put away and the hero who comes along and defies the bosses – is a wonderful story but it doesn't change matters on the ground because if you don't change the conditions that give rise to these organisations … you don't take away the reasons why they exist," he says Those conditions can be defined as a near-absence of the state in certain areas which presents clans with opportunities to "take up that slack" "The problem is that there is a tendency in the Italian debate to see everything as a criminal issue and as an issue of people," he says Heroes are wonderful and Saviano and especially [Natale] are great examples of people who are putting themselves … on the line while his schoolmate in Casal worshipped Che Guevara whom he saw as an unwilling symbol of "commitment resistance and courage" for the way he stood up to the Casalesi clan which reigned in Casal di Principe from the late 1970s onwards As it enforced what he calls a "military dictatorship" on the town the clan built itself up to become the economic powerhouse of the Camorra the courageous priest gunned down in his sacristy Particularly shocking to Italians because of the message it sent – in Natale's words to whomever" – his assassination was the start of a civil resistance in Casal that that partial blossoming of civil society has been accompanied by a weakening of the local clan nicknamed O' Ninno – The Baby – recently decided to turn state witness and spill the secrets of the organisation to prosecutors Leaked reports of his statements have been filling the newspapers for weeks giving Italians an unprecedented glimpse into the criminal entrepreneurial and political links that enabled the clan to rule the roost for so long "I'm not saying it has already been totally eliminated but it certainly doesn't have that same capacity for pressurising and making its presence felt as it did in the past," says Natale traumatised and deprived – will ever emerge from the long shadow cast by organised crime The Camorra is a notoriously adaptable and resilient organisation with huge power and economic clout that stretches far beyond its Neapolitan homeland "Every now and then the Americans do one of those television series based on historical events a self-declared "Catholic-communist" "The Borgia family governed not only Rome but other parts of Italy At that time … everyone said: 'Rome is an impossible city We could never imagine it any different.' Now we have Pope Francis The same thing happened with the Soviet Union everyone looked at one another and asked: 'But what's happened?' It seemed impossible as [murdered prosecutor Giovanni] Falcone used to say 'No human phenomenon is eternal.'"This town never supported criminality completely and utterly The population was often forced to stay shut up at home "There is a kind of pride among these people which made them suffer through having to keep their heads down have had their organisational capacity to a certain extent defeated giving the people here an opportunity to raise their heads again politicians – need to help this population This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Amedeo Letizia is a twenty-year-old who at the end of the 1980s moves to Rome from Casal di Principe to pursue a career as an actor between a photonovel and a part on the small screen in one of the most famous serials of those years is kidnapped by some men wearing hoods and vanishes from sight and right from the start this journey proves to be a descent into the hell of his past and the contradictions of his land Since the investigation carried out by the carabinieri is getting nowhere he decides to conduct his own search: he does it armed with a rifle and with the aid of his seventeen-year-old cousin Marco The details of the disappearance emerge gradually over the course of the film in which we see Amedeo roaming a territory that stretches from the countryside to the sea and includes a number of lakes He combs the area with Marco without knowing whether to look for a corpse or a place where Paolo is being held prisoner This powerful real-life story made me think a great deal about how the cinema has represented the ideology imposed on people by underworld organizations and allowed me to take a plunge into a little explored area: the life of ordinary people in places where the camorra holds sway A story in which the heroes are neither the criminals nor those who combat them but the people who are caught against their will in the net of the Mob It is a story poised between the difficult struggle to forget things in order to go on living and the need for memory and truth Nato a Casal di Principe has been a turning point for me Contact us Press Office Subscribe to the Newsletter and get the latest info on our programmes and initiatives Subscribe the acclaimed writer has lived in fear for his life following publication of his exposé on the criminal gangs The Observer takes a trip back to Naples with him and his minders On a Friday in autumn 2006, local newspapers and prosecutors in Italy’s south-western region of Campania received the same anonymous letter. Computer-typed and delivered by hand in the early morning, it detailed the Neapolitan Mafia’s plan to execute a 26-year-old Italian writer. His name was Roberto Saviano and his book, Gomorrah a devastating denunciation of the Camorra’s criminal activity refers to a meeting held in a betting office in Casal di Principe known as some of the most violent in the Camorra saying that his murder would take place “when the waters are calm” The letter stated that Saviano “must be punished” that the bosses knew where his mother lived that they’d been following him for weeks and that two hitmen had already been commissioned to murder him It explained that “the weapons that will be used for the execution have already been placed” in an associate’s house It concluded with a threat in bold type and underlined: “If he shuts up Saviano in Castel Volturno where six young African men were murdered by the Camorra in 2008 Photograph: Roberto Salomone/The ObserverSince then he has not spent more than a few nights in the same place take a stroll in busy places or go to the sea I visited him on a recent Monday in a minuscule apartment in Rome while another remains on guard at the entrance The first thing you notice are the thousands of books that line the walls seem to represent the man of letters forced to live like a prisoner and his face is tense – the consequences of a life lived Sometimes I’ve even thought that dying would be better than living like this Death would be more acceptable than this constant pressure the state of anxiety and emptiness in which I’ve been living for so long.” Fifteen years under police escort is a milestone and three armoured vehicles and seven policemen await us downstairs the Observer will accompany Saviano on a road trip from Rome to Naples He left as a young man and returns as the most famous living Italian writer and international symbol of the anti-mafia struggle – hated by the right for his pro-refugee pronouncements and by some of his fellow citizens who accuse him of having tainted the image of his home territory which was the same as taking God’s name in vainRoberto SavianoWe set off in the first armoured vehicle “When I wrote Gomorrah, I knew I was writing stories that many reporters already knew,” says Saviano, who last week launched a graphic novel about his life illustrated by Israeli comic book artist Asaf Hanuka “But I also knew those stories had never received an anthropological interpretation I knew I had something literary in my hands But I never could’ve imagined what would happen next.” After Gomorrah was published Saviano started to receive mysterious phone calls: the phone would ring Then the threatening letters started arriving his mother found in her mailbox a photo of Saviano with a gun pointed at his temple: above was written “sentenced” during an anti-mafia rally in Casal di Principe a town where it’s said there are more guns than forks Saviano challenged the bosses from the stage inciting the crowd to rise up against the clan who made a plan to assassinate the writer in an attack on Christmas day which was the same as taking God’s name in vain” the Camorra was planning to kill Saviano in a spectacular blast reminiscent of the 1992 Capaci massacre when the Sicilian mafia killed the anti-mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone and the members of his police escort with 300kg of dynamite that left a crater on the motorway near Palermo The authorities took the threats seriously “At first I thought I’d be under protection for two or three days and that soon I’d be able to go back to my normal life.” He looks out of the window as we race past the so-called “Land of Fire”, an area in the countryside of the province of Caserta, where the Camorra buried tons of toxic waste beneath roads and land “I realised that the situation was more serious than I thought when [the police] took me to a secure location on a remote island They put me in a house that was only accessible by sea and to make calls a police agent had to ferry me out to sea.” Saviano on the beach of Castel Volturno He has lived under police protection for 15 years Photograph: Roberto Salomone/The ObserverUnder such tight security Saviano asks the agents to pull over at a motorway service station so he can use the bathroom Two men alight from one car and check that the bathroom is secure while the other agents remain outside to guard the door “The price I’ve paid is higher than anything I could have imagined,” says Saviano “But what really bothers me is seeing my family have to move from town to town I feel guilty every day of my life for this.” several European countries have offered Saviano protection including a Scandinavian country which offered him asylum Saviano would be required to give up his fight against organised crime: no more interviews “I’ve thought long about leaving Italy,” he admits I was committed to changing the status quo Saviano has attempted to live a normal life “Even when I was abroad, in some countries I was forced to live under police guard,” he says. “At a certain point I was being transferred to cities I didn’t even know existed. One of the days I felt the freest in years was in London, when I met Julian Assange I went from the airport to the city centre by myself They were chosen at random to send a message to the African drug gangs The massacre inspired the episode African Blood in the first season of the TV series Gomorrah Saviano hadn’t been to Castel Volturno for years The escort vehicles stop at the ruins of an abandoned tourist village We decide to stretch our legs along the beach Two additional armoured vehicles join our escort to accompany us to the Vele. Saviano gets out briefly – just enough time to have a quick chat with the officers at the police station in Scampia and leave in haste. He isn’t well liked around here. On the walls of the neighbourhood are written slogans like “Scampia is not Gomorrah”. It’s not only the bosses who don’t like his presence here; many residents have expressed their displeasure. if the state has intervened to rid the quarter of several mafiosi it’s also because Saviano brought attention to the place While Saviano can count on millions of supporters he is also the target of thousands of haters the majority of whom accuse him of having earned millions of euros by tarnishing Naples And there are those who argue that Saviano does not need an escort; that if the Camorra had really wanted to kill him The far-right ex-minister of the interior, Matteo Salvini, threatened to remove Saviano’s escort after the writer attacked him for his anti-immigration policies ‘‘Many people have forgotten how this story began and why I am under escort today,’’ says Saviano “Many think being under escort is a privilege Some people even see the escort as a sign of success Salman Rushdie who was forced into hiding after receiving death threats over his novel The Satanic Verses said when he met Saviano in 2008 at the Nobel Academy in Sweden: “People blame me for being alive – to keep going to parties or to write books They will blame you for your life.” “For the people I am a martyr who is not dead,” Saviano says It might have been better if they had killed me I feel like everything I’ve fought for has been for nothing It happens when you feel you cannot free yourself from this life condemning the mafia men who had threatened me.” I’ve paid a high price. But what really bothers me is seeing my family have to move from town to townRoberto SavianoLast May, judges ruled that a Camorra mafia boss, Francesco Bidognetti, and his lawyer had threatened Saviano’s life and that of a journalistic colleague – Rosaria Capacchione It was a landmark ruling – the first time someone had been held accountable for Saviano’s plight As our journey draws to a close at the foot of Vesuvius and with the beauty of Naples unfolding before us Saviano says: ‘‘I should have celebrated that ruling The boss who condemned me to this life was finally sentenced I was only 26 when they sentenced me to a life under armed guard all the beautiful things you have done in your life flash by you I relived everything I have not been able to do in the last 15 years.’’ A smile that seems to hide his anger; a smile that reminds me of the final line of Gomorrah: “Damned bastards This is the archive of The Observer up until 21/04/2025 The Observer is now owned and operated by Tortoise Media there was no pediatric cancer ward anywhere near the tiny village of Acerra the local hospitals have set up facilities equipped for radiation and chemotherapy for children A mobile blood test unit putters around the area to test white blood counts The national average for juvenile brain tumors in Italy is just 0.5 per every 100,000 children the average number is three children with brain cancer at any given time which locals attribute to the rogue dumping of toxic chemicals in the countryside by the Camorra crime syndicate thousands of tons of toxic waste have been dumped burned and buried in an area known as the ‘triangle of death’ that runs from Naples to Caserta to the slopes of Mt which is an active volcano that could theoretically blow at any time spreading the toxic waste problem much further afield The toxins have polluted the groundwater and poisoned the soil Pope Francis weighed in after 150,000 parishioners in nearby Casal di Principe sent him postcards with pictures of the children who have perished from cancer and leukemia in the last few years after she put her cellphone number on her postcard telling her he would pray for the children and those caring for them Even the Italian government now refers to the area as the “terra di tumori” or “land of tumors.” military base in Naples started warning troops and their families stationed in the Naples area not to drink the water or eat dairy products like buffalo mozzarella because of suspected high levels of toxins The report alleges that high levels of arsenic fecal coliform and dioxins were found in random tests of water samples in the area despite Italian assurances that the water was safe The study also found high levels of insecticides that have been banned for years due to safety concerns in soil samples which ultimately make it into the food chain military personnel based in Naples to stay clear of the local water supplies even suggesting the “use of bottled water for off-base personnel due to the widespread presence of contaminants (e.g. as well as the other drinking water system infrastructure deficiencies.” The navy also suggested that off-base families choose living accommodations above the second floor “which will significantly mitigate concerns associated with vapor intrusion from soil gas.” The Italian government has been cornered into reluctantly admitting that they have known about the problem for years Transcripts of 1997 testimony by Camorra turncoat Carmine Schiavone but the residents risked dying of cancer within 20 years I don’t think they can be saved,” he told the court 16 years ago alleging that the government was well aware of the criminal activity but that the local officials were also involved in the lucrative business He says he went to the police because he could no longer stand by and watch the illegal activity “I warned them that this toxic waste would kill entire generations,” he told Mediaset ‘what good it is to drink bottled water when the whole population is dead?” Citing 82 criminal complaints for illegal trafficking of toxic waste that ran the gamut from reports of mysterious midnight runs by large container trucks to rogue fires in the Neapolitan hinterland they conclude that: “Only politicians’ widespread inertia’ and ‘oversights’ by controllers a dense network of collusion and a mafia code of silence could have resulted in the invisibility of such a column of trucks.” Accusations against the so-called eco-mafia for poisoning the local population have been brewing for many years who owns a fruit shop in the Neapolitan suburb of Terzigno not far from Acerra along the lush slopes of Mt told The Daily Beast that he was worried his children would get cancer from the toxic waste being dumped by the Camorra He described the pollution like as a “heavy soiled blanket that smothers us each night.” “It burns your eyes. It closes your throat. The children vomit and cough. Our bodies are covered with rashes.” Mosca told The Daily Beast that he was just completing his last dose of chemotherapy for lung cancer Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here has reported from Italy for Newsweek since 1997 and for The Daily Beast since 2009 She is also a CNN Contributor and frequent writer for Scientific American Florence’s famed Uffizi gallery joins forces with small-town mayor to add new dimension to Italy’s long-running struggle against Neapolitan crime groups The notorious Camorra mafia boss Egidio Coppola – who used to go by the name of “Brutus” and is now living behind bars – could never have guessed that his villa on the outskirts of Naples would someday become a monument to the victims of organised crime It was even less likely that his kitschy home – which, like many belonging to the top brass of the Camorra’s Casalesi clan, was inspired by the Hollywood film Scarface – would be used to display great works of art on loan from the Uffizi gallery in Florence But that scenario will become a reality next month thanks to a chance conversation between Renato Natale, the crusading anti-mafia mayor of Casal di Principe the small town that acts as the Casalesi’s power centre the director of the world-renowned Uffizi art gallery construction crews are busy turning the Coppola residence – seized by the Italian state following his arrest in 2012 – into the area’s first museum A temporary exhibit called The Light Wins Over the Shadow which takes its inspiration from Caravaggio will open on 22 June and will include works of art from the Uffizi and other galleries The exhibit will be dedicated to the memory of Peppe Diana a local priest who was shot in the head by Camorra members in 1994 as he prepared for mass “Only through the promotion of civil society can we build a community that will always be ready to protect itself from this kind of infiltration,” Natale told the Guardian as he participated in a memorial ceremony in nearby Castel Volturno for a local businessman killed seven years ago for resisting the Camorra the opening of the museum is “one of the main aspirations of the Uffizi” The prestigious Florentine gallery also found itself the target of an attack by the Cosa Nostra mafia of Sicily in 1993 an act of domestic terrorism that killed five people and cost $1m (£650,000) in damages who was himself the target of a failed assassination plot – “they were not good enough” he says with a chuckle – is convinced that his region has finally been “liberated” from the clutches of the infamous Neapolitan mafia “We as a people are kind of like a stammerer who has had a deep So like a stammerer we still find it difficult to pronounce a word like meraviglia (wonder),” he said The creation of the museum and special exhibit, which Natale hopes to eventually transform into a permanent museum to commemorate the “resistance” against the Camorra, is just one of positive signs that organised crime in this region of Italy is in retreat another anti-mafia campaigner called Dimitri Russo is also optimistic: he has hung a sign over his town hall declaring that the area has been “decomorrizzato” – or de-Cammorised including a slate of candidates in next Sunday’s regional elections in Campania who are thought to have ties to the Camorra “It’s a mixed message,” says Federico Varese a criminologist at Oxford University and an expert in organised crime While Varese sees some positive developments he says the biographies of some of the candidates which include adult children of one-time crime bosses But you have to remember that there have been people before that have done these wonderful things on the ground and that it has not solved the problem in the long run,” he added agrees that it is too early to hail the end of the Camorra even though the recent arrests of many top crime bosses has brought an end to the bloodshed in the Naples area “Changes cannot be assessed based on number of people arrested This doesn’t mean things have changed,” he told the Guardian when “businessmen” – who ultimately represent the lifeblood of the Camorra – break their ties with organised crime This is a very complicated thing to really tackle,” he said “A businessman who wants to be free must operate legally even in small things – even in the use of legal shopping bags,” he said referencing a new initiative by the sons of two businessmen slain by the Camorra They now produce biodegradable shopping bags as a way of hitting back against one of the Camorra’s big businesses land that was once used to raise horses by the late Michele Zaza another crime boss who was known as O Pazzo (the crazy one) is now being run by a cooperative that produces organic buffalo mozzarella The project is run by agronomist Roberto Fiorillo and his partners who are try to use sustainable businesses to right some of the damage inflicted on the environment by the mafia A small shop within the property sells organic tomato sauce from other farms and organic pasta as well as T-shirts bearing the phrase: “He who has fear dies everyday Asked if he has ever felt the weight of the Camorra personally Fiorillo said its presence only affected him through relatively small annoyances “I want to denounce the company that sold them to me,” he says FDN / Society / Police / Diving into anti-mafia Italy (1/3) At the invitation of the Crimhalt* association the families of victims of the recent settling of scores in Marseille have just immersed themselves in the land of the Camorra To learn from the Italians of the anti-mafia how to position themselves in the face of organized violence shots rang out in the sacristy of the Basilica of St had been shot five times: twice in the head The assassination was the work of the local Camorra against whom the priest had always fought with modest means a large number of the town’s 21,000 inhabitants have paid tribute to the priest It begins with a mass at the time of the priest’s murder followed by a march from the town center to the cemetery They too were affected by the death of a loved one Some fifty properties belonging to “bosses” or simple executors of the organization were seized and then confiscated Some of these assets were made available to associations the Italian justice system sequestered over 35,000 villas the idea is to redistribute these assets to associations working in the social economy one of the restaurants seized and visited by the French group Next article: “When a Camorra boss’s house becomes… a police station” (2/3) fictional mob bosses have long revelled in outrageous kitsch But they have been put in the shade by a real-life mafioso whose villa near Naples turned out to be an Aladdin's cave of luxury tackiness when police seized it last week the son of the legendary Camorra boss Francesco Schiavone built his dream home behind tall metal gates in Casal di Principe where officers unearthed kitsch furniture and fittings worth €300,000 (£240,000) Chaise longues with silver-coloured frames sit before a massive portrait of what appears to be an ancient Roman avant garde ceiling lights illuminate old-fashioned bannisters and a glass cabinet of religious statues while the bedroom cupboards are full of shellsuit tops featuring coats of arms One of the five bathrooms features floor-to-ceiling glass mosaics from Murano The villa is the flashiest seen locally since another Schiavone family member ordered an architect to build a replica of the villa in Scarface in which Tony Montana dies in a hail of gunfire Nicola also set up TV cameras around his house with footage shown on a large screen placed inside an ornate picture frame Colonel Roberto Prosperi of the Italian tax police whose face actually appears on some of the furniture and in the mosaics." After fearful local removal firms refused to help clear the house Prosperi called in the army to load up Schiavone's possessions which included a two metre-wide fuscia-coloured flowerpot "That is now due to grace the courtyard at Naples courthouse," he said (ANS – Casal di Principe) – Sr Secretary of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development and Full Professor of Political Economy at the Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences “Auxilium” of Rome has been awarded the Don Peppe Diana National Award – For the love of my people The National Prize is awarded to personalities who have been able to best embody in the artistic priest of Casal di Principe killed by the Camorra on 19 March 1994 and to the construction of free communities that are alternatives to the mafias The bestowal ceremony took place on 4 July 2022 in Casal di Principe (in the province of Caserta) on the day the priest would have celebrated his birthday and the inauguration of the 15th edition of the Civil Commitment Festival realized on assets confiscated from organized crime The motivation for assigning the recognition to Sr Alessandra Smerilli is based on her work “to defend equality and for the integral promotion of the person by developing those principles of the social doctrine of the Church to which Pope Francis constantly reminds us for building a better world.” writer and academic; and actor Alessandro Gassman were also awarded Scout and President of Aps TerradiConfine di Ponticelli; to Professor Daniele Manni; to Massimo Antonelli Coach of Tam Tam Basket; to Cartoonist Takoua Ben Mohamed A Special Prize was awarded to the Journalist Angela Caponnetto a chronicler of migratory flows and of refugees from conflict zones I dedicate the award to all those who work every day in the field not hesitating to put their lives in danger for truth legality” commented Sister Alessandra on receiving the Award Source: CGFMAnet.org ANS - “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana” is a on-line almost daily publication the communication agency of the Salesian Congregation enrolled in the Press Register of the Tibunal of Rome as n 153/2007 This site also uses third-party cookies to improve user experience and for statistical purposes By scrolling through this page or by clicking on any of its elements