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"One man's trash is another man's treasure" has never rung truer than in Italy, where mafias have made billions on our waste for decades, at a detrimental cost to local communities.
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00:01International organized crime has no natural predator.
00:06Crime syndicates are expanding and forging alliances across the globe.
00:15As law enforcement struggle to stop them, up to 5% of the global economy is now in criminal hands.
00:23I'm Paul Radu and for the past 20 years I have investigated international organized crime.
00:29In the tune of 400 billion and this is a very very small slice of what's really going on.
00:36I think there are some people, let's go, let's go.
00:40In this series I'm working with a team of reporters around the world.
00:44Are you angry with yourself for being part of this?
00:48To discover how a generation of international gangs are redrawing the criminal map.
01:01Naples is the home of Italy's largest and oldest mafia, the Camorra.
01:09For decades they've used extreme violence to force businesses to pay millions in extortion.
01:15And have infiltrated most parts of the economy to launder money made from international drug trafficking.
01:23But the Camorra have also pioneered a new form of trafficking.
01:27Profiting from the 11 billion tons of waste we produce every year.
01:32It's an inordinate amount and there's no surprise that a third of that waste is being disposed of in unsafe
01:40or even illegal ways.
01:42I've come to Italy to meet the people who are suffering in the system and to meet the mafia making
01:48billions out of disposing waste illegally.
01:55To understand how the Camorra turned garbage into gold, you have to go back to the 1990s.
02:01As they expanded their international drug trafficking business, the Camorra assassinated anyone who stood in their way.
02:10In 1994, Naples declared a state of emergency.
02:14Not because of the escalating homicide rates, but because of a waste crisis.
02:20When the state hastily issued contracts to new waste disposal companies, the Camorra spotted a new, lucrative business venture.
02:36Over the last 30 years, operating behind front companies, the Camorra have won profitable waste contracts from heavy industry across
02:43Italy.
02:45They've dumped millions of tons in Naples and the surrounding region of Campania.
02:51I just got a call from one of the contributors that I was hoping to speak to here in Naples.
02:56He's saying that there are fires right now burning and he's asked me to go to him immediately to see
03:04exactly what's going on.
03:05When the Camorra dump a new load of illegal waste, they often cover their tracks by burning it.
03:11I can see it. Yeah, it's over there.
03:15Well, they show it's a perfect place to dump, right? It's very difficult to get to.
03:20It's in between, like a spaghetti junction of highways.
03:23It can go unnoticed for quite some time, but I can see the smoke billowing.
03:38What about the waste? Are they dumping stuff and burning it?
03:42There's a fire in there.
03:45OK, we're going to go and see now.
03:47Hold on tight.
03:49Should we just try on foot?
03:50Because we're not going to be able to drive up to it.
03:55So it looks like the fire people have just put the fire out. It's absolutely gigantic. It's huge.
04:02The ground is still smoldering.
04:04Right.
04:12Whenever there's a problem that governments fail to solve, organized crime comes in and finds opportunity.
04:21This garbage needed to be moved. And they've already built the infrastructure over the years to move anything from drugs
04:31to humans to weapons.
04:35This was a way to legitimize, to launder money. And the quantity of waste that's constantly growing would become in
04:45itself a great source of revenue.
04:47It was a win-win situation for them. Of course, they will not try to get rid of the waste
04:53in a proper way because that is very, very expensive.
04:56So by not actually investing in the treatment of the waste, they make a lot of money because they get
05:05paid by the waste generators.
05:08And they bury it or they just dump it. There's almost no penalty for trafficking of waste.
05:15It's very low risk. It's high returns. It's great business for the mafia.
05:30Excuse me. How often are you doing this?
05:41I don't even know what I'm breathing in. The air here is toxic. The land's been destroyed. They've dumped whatever
05:51they wanted to. And now I'm covered in trafficked trash ash.
05:59And it's just such an awful smell and taste in the back of my throat. You can't even imagine.
06:08Local resident, Enzo, has been documenting the devastation caused by the Kimora.
06:13Can you tell me what's happened here? How big was the fire? And what were they burning?
06:18The fire was very large. Here, everything was burned. There were special inert, dangerous, dangerous, and not.
06:26There was also waste. There was obviously a lot of coverts. There were sprays with chemicals in the inside.
06:34There are laws regulating the disposal of hazardous substances, but there's little profit in following costly treatment procedures.
06:42So the Kimora simply dumped the waste and their toxins, enabling them to undercut their competitors.
07:07Oh my God! This is here?
07:10Yes, it's here.
07:27Fire started by the Kimora are so commonplace that the region is now known as the land of fires.
07:35What's the hardest thing for you when you see something like this?
07:56I'm just spending a few hours here,
08:00but Enzo and a lot of people have to live in this.
08:05This is completely part of their lives.
08:09And I can't even begin to kind of understand what it must take,
08:12how angry you must feel to know that this goes on and nobody's watching.
08:23The Camorra have dumped waste in thousands of illegal sites across Campania.
08:28Arsenic, asbestos and dangerous heavy metals leak into local drinking water,
08:34people's food and the air they breathe.
08:37The illegal waste trade earns the Camorra billions of euros a year.
08:48I've come to meet an ex-Camorra boss who was involved in setting up this dirty business.
08:57Hello.
09:00After serving a 20 year sentence,
09:02Nuzio broke the Camorra's code of silence, the omerta,
09:05and became a state informant.
09:08He now lives with a price on his head.
09:12I have a picture of the first prison.
09:15He's 18 and a half years old.
09:17That prison was my ruin.
09:20The people that you see there are all dead.
09:23All dead.
09:25Only I stayed there.
09:27In that prison,
09:29in that prison,
09:29in that prison,
09:30in that prison,
09:33in that prison.
09:34What did you have to do
09:36to get to that rank?
09:38I mean,
09:38was there violence involved?
09:40You have to be a serious person and very credible.
09:43There's the Camorra who is the killer.
09:45There's the Camorra who is the administrator.
09:48It's a society.
09:49Yes.
09:49And my job was that of extorsions, right?
09:53And my job was that of that.
09:54How did you even get involved in trash trafficking?
09:57My cousin transports the frauds.
10:00I explain to myself all the savings
10:02that you can do in the field of frauds.
10:04And I say,
10:06excuse me,
10:07you're a liar.
10:09You're a liar.
10:10You're a liar.
10:11You're a liar.
10:12You're a liar.
10:13You're a liar.
10:1330 years ago,
10:14I told the magistrate
10:17that the money is gold.
10:19You're a liar.
10:21You're a liar.
10:23How did you justify that to yourself?
10:26Like, you know this trash is toxic.
10:28Do you remember what you were thinking?
10:30You're 20, 30 years old.
10:31What were you thinking when you were doing this?
10:33I didn't look at the frauds they were transported.
10:35I didn't look at me.
10:37I didn't look at the frauds they were transported.
10:37Because I looked at the percentage
10:40that I served as a fifth law.
10:42It's the industrialists.
10:44Yeah.
10:45They make the frauds.
10:46They make the frauds.
10:48And to save them,
10:50they give them to the Camorra
10:51at a little price.
10:52They make the frauds where they want to.
10:55Nunzio claims heavy industry knew
10:57the Camorra were not disposing
10:59of the waste safely.
11:01And politicians and judges were paid off
11:03to avoid enforcing environmental laws.
11:18What happened to this?
11:21The Magistratura has attempted to not see.
11:26Now, if she wants,
11:28I can also bring her here.
11:31An alliance of clans
11:32with over 4,500 foot soldiers,
11:35the Camorra exert control over Campania
11:38through violence.
11:42Nunzio left this area years ago
11:44and is fearful of retribution on his return.
11:48It's Nunzio.
11:50Nunzio?
11:53Nunzio, hello.
11:54Ciao, hello.
11:55What do we have to do?
11:56We have to be very quick.
11:58We have to be very quick.
11:59Yes, because here...
12:00See?
12:01...immediatamente
12:02I know.
12:03He's scared.
12:04He's scared.
12:05So you see?
12:06Yes.
12:06OK.
12:07We will be careful.
12:08OK.
12:09He's already out of his car.
12:11He's gone ahead.
12:18So what are we looking at?
12:19What's...
12:20What is over here?
12:27There?
12:41And what would you dump here?
12:43What sort of things do you remember putting into the ground?
12:46Ravi from the whole Italy.
12:49Here it is all.
12:50Ravi from hospitaliers, radiative...
12:54Radioactive.
12:55...urban, fang, oil etc.
12:58There's just everything.
13:01Ngunzio, what is this doing to the people that live in those houses?
13:23You're so angry at what's happened here.
13:26Are you angry with yourself for being part of this?
13:35These people, the millions that they have, it doesn't cost anything to give 10,000 euros
13:40for a person who is sent to shoot over.
13:42It doesn't need anything.
13:43OK, OK, let's go.
13:44And to go away, we've been too much.
13:46Come on, let's go.
13:47I think this is too much now.
13:49Nunzio cannot know who will get sick from the waste he dumped, but the region of Campania
13:54does have the highest cancer mortality rate in Italy.
13:57An area 25 kilometres north of Naples became known as the Triangle of Death.
14:03This is where the Camorra dumped most of their waste.
14:06Over the last few decades, there have been alarmingly high levels of leukemia amongst children here.
14:22Marzia Caciopoli lives in a nearby town with the highest child mortality rate in Italy.
14:28Her son, Antonio, developed a cancerous brain tumour aged just nine.
14:33One year of chemotherapy could not save him.
14:38Marzia Caciopoli lives in father-in-law as in혼.
14:40He was speaking OT, who cared much in English.
14:44He loved Michael Jackson and dancing.
14:49He loved all rock music.
14:52He was a bassist, grew with the passion for music.
14:58We had a very happy little family.
15:04His dreams and desires were destroyed by this disease.
15:10The glioblastoma is a very cruel disease.
15:18I started to understand that my son was sick of something terrible
15:24because of the environment when I asked myself where I lived
15:30as a doctor, because it was not possible
15:34for the son or the child.
15:39Here we are, he and he are in care.
15:46These are our last kisses.
16:10Local priest Don Patrocello has seen a large number of children
16:14from the town die from cancers usually associated with the elderly.
16:27I celebrated the funeral here in this parish
16:32to Luciano, who died at 16 years old,
16:35to Antonio, who died at 10 years old,
16:40and after a few years, even his mother,
16:43who died at 3 years old,
16:45and I could call them all of them.
16:48And then, by turning the look into the nearby countries,
16:52I realized that there were many children
16:54who died of a tumor.
16:55So I don't want to return to celebrate
16:58the funeral of a child.
17:00I want this child to not die.
17:02And then we raised the voice.
17:07The people here have endured decades of violence from the Camorra.
17:12Now, their toxic waste trade is harming children.
17:15They're turning against the Camorra and the politicians.
17:19What's happening here today?
17:21From the Ministry of Environment.
17:23They've come to the streets today
17:25as the Minister of the Environment, Sergio Costa,
17:28is in town to launch a clean-up project.
17:32They've burned everything.
17:33They've burned everything.
17:34They've burned everything.
17:36They've burned everything.
17:37They've burned everything.
17:37It's 34 years that we expect solutions.
17:40And thousands of people have died.
17:42Thousands of children, young people.
17:45In 2014 and 2015,
17:47the EU fined the Italian government
17:49millions of euros
17:50for their continued failure
17:52to tackle the toxic waste.
17:54This is obviously a big deal for the local community,
17:57and there's lots of newspapers and journalists.
18:01It's clear that the goal is zero
18:04but it can't be left only to the police forces.
18:08We need the politics.
18:09We refuse it.
18:10Now we collect it.
18:11We love it.
18:13We love it.
18:13They're killing us.
18:14They're the dogs.
18:16We're trying.
18:17They're the dogs.
18:18They're the dogs.
18:19They're the dogs.
18:20There are children who die from leucemia.
18:23But why are we kidding?
18:25I don't care about the political colors.
18:28There's a mother, a niece.
18:30It's enough.
18:31It's enough.
18:42Why are you doing this?
18:44Because every night we breathe toxic air from fire.
18:50This is not possible, OK?
18:52But we're talking to him.
18:54I'm just doing my job.
18:56OK, OK.
18:58Do you think that this is going to change anything,
19:01This is not useful.
19:03This is not concrete.
19:05Just a manifestation to show to the world
19:09the terrible situation of this part of the world.
19:13We are alone.
19:29We follow the minister to his next event.
19:32People here have little faith in politicians to tackle the Camorra.
19:36They've corrupted local politicians, judges, and the police over many decades.
19:42Hold up many decades,
19:48they're actually the ones in progress.
19:54They've got two truths of like this as one a few years ago.
19:58They had problems and he died.
19:58They had a fair plan for the player,
19:59They have no way to go outside theELLA one.
20:10This is my reaction, the reaction that I made.
20:15It was because of the fact that this thing is in the first place.
20:52That is the visible part of the problem, the toxic chemicals,
20:57the ill health of the local community, the air, the food.
21:02This is going to take decades to solve.
21:04It's true that this is only part of the problem,
21:07but in the meantime, we have approved a law
21:11that gives the Ministry of the Environment
21:14the possibility to make the benefits in this territory.
21:18That means, finally,
21:20to liberate from the toxic chemicals and pollutants the soil.
21:24Not only, to depure the water.
21:27We are already doing it. The water is cleaner than before.
21:30Now it's clear that there is a time to do it,
21:33but this technical time has finally started.
21:35But you're fighting the traffickers.
21:39They are the Comorra. They are the mafia.
21:42How can you fight them?
21:44To combat the organized evil and the eco-mafies,
21:48that is, the organized evil, specialized in waste,
21:53in the waste, there are some techniques.
21:56The issue is to make transparent
21:58the action of those who manage the waste.
22:00Yes, yes, yes.
22:01In order to know how the so-called waste is managed.
22:06The other element is the control of the money
22:10that turns around the waste.
22:12Because the mafia, where there are the money,
22:14you will find the money and you will find the crime.
22:21Tracing the Comorra's cash is not easy.
22:23The police have seized their luxury mansions
22:26and millions of euros in assets.
22:29But over many decades,
22:31the Comorra have permeated the local economy,
22:33laundering and hiding their money in agriculture,
22:36restaurants, supermarkets, even car parks.
22:40Seizing the billions the Comorra make
22:42would mean tearing apart the fabric of Naples society.
22:53I've come back to meet local activist Enzo.
22:58Working with anti-mafia group Libera,
23:00Enzo is now transforming confiscated Comorra properties
23:03for the community.
23:28What does it say?
23:30What does it say?
23:33With the mafia practically next door,
23:36I'm not surprised Enzo has installed CCTV.
23:39We've already had some intimidations.
23:42And we'll be ready to show to the Comorra
23:44that we will never go away
23:47and that we don't have fear of Lolo.
23:49Here they had the horses.
23:53They had the horses.
23:55And here we have to restructure,
23:56we have to restrain them to make a library.
23:58In this country we don't have a library.
24:01We're going to destroy the Comorra with the culture.
24:03Oh, God, what a plan.
24:07The culture war is now working.
24:10After years of public pressure,
24:12the Comorra is finally starting to bend,
24:14trafficking the majority of its waste overseas.
24:19Their image was badly tainted
24:22because people realised that the Comorra
24:25was doing something that was detrimental
24:28to their health.
24:29So this is why they wanted to put some distance
24:32between what they were collecting in Italy
24:35and the dumping grounds.
24:38The Comorra is trafficking waste
24:40to countries with weaker environmental controls,
24:43exporting the illness they've wrought
24:45on their own community.
24:49Tenente, vigil!
24:52I've come to meet Italy's finance police,
24:54the Guardia di Finanza,
24:56who work closely with customs.
24:59On average, 300,000 containers come through here
25:02every year.
25:04The Comorra falsify paperwork
25:06and corrupt some port officials
25:08to ensure the waste gets through undetected.
25:12Tenente, is this coming for scan?
25:14Yes, we have found some risk profiles
25:17because they contain merchandise
25:19that we are suspected.
25:47You two agree that this looks dodgy.
25:50It looks like it could be trafficked waste.
25:55OK, I'm going to stand back and I'm going to watch you do your job.
26:13Why did they put a car in here?
26:15These mechanical parts, which are rejected in Italy,
26:19are still designated in African countries,
26:23where there is a florid market of cars used.
26:28So, what in Italy is rejected in Africa
26:32becomes a commercial property with an important value.
26:35It seems that one person's waste is another person's profit.
26:40Is this a mixture of personal belongings
26:44and things that they want to sell commercially?
26:48Is it designed to hide the truth that this is trafficking?
26:52Yes, yes.
26:54A person for the good, who, doing sacrifices in Italy
26:57with humble works,
26:59they collect goods to provide their dear ones
27:01in the ocean.
27:03But behind these,
27:04criminal organizations
27:06organize and architect the trade of goods used.
27:09There are also bottles of wine and pasta
27:14that are used as gifts
27:16to accelerate the docanal operations in the African countries.
27:22I mean, it can't get more Italian
27:24than trying to bribe folks
27:25with wine and pasta.
27:27Yes.
27:34It's full of trash.
27:36Yes.
27:37Just waste.
27:39Oh, the vino.
27:40Or champagne.
27:41Oh, the good stuff.
27:44Better.
27:46What do you see?
27:47Mini.
27:48Mini.
27:49A Mini Cooper car.
27:53I'm in the container right now
27:55and I just,
27:56because there's no way the cameras
27:57would be able to get up here, but...
27:58There's a Mini Cooper.
28:00There's mattresses.
28:02There's absolutely countless bits of tyres, TVs.
28:10They've even remembered to bring in the kitchen sink.
28:13I mean, it's ridiculous.
28:25In 2017, the trafficking of waste
28:28became an even more lucrative business.
28:31China, who used to recycle 50% of the world's waste,
28:34banned all foreign imports.
28:37This opened the way for the Kimora
28:39to expand their international network.
28:41It's estimated they trafficked thousands of tonnes of waste
28:45into Eastern Europe.
28:46Much of it arrives in Romania,
28:48which has been dubbed the dustbin of Europe.
28:55The Mafias like to invest in countries where the rule of law is weaker,
29:01where there's easier to bribe, where there's poverty,
29:04because for them, again, crisis situations are opportunities.
29:09And Romania is one of those.
29:11You see people in the local governments,
29:15people in the environmental agency,
29:17officials in the borders.
29:19So they're really corrupt all across.
29:22they create a trail of corruption that serves them
29:25while the citizens are victims of all of this.
29:30When you go to Transylvania, where I grew up,
29:33and you see garbage dumped, you know,
29:36on these mountainous slopes in the forest,
29:38it's sad because you realise how much the changes places.
29:47I've come to Bijo County in Romania,
29:49where trucks illegally dumped 700 tonnes of waste
29:53from Italy behind a farm.
29:56Local journalist Adriana is investigating the case.
30:02Here it is.
30:04It's just ripped up clothes.
30:07I see clothes and I see, I don't know, plastics.
30:10It's rotting.
30:12Yes.
30:13Smells terrible.
30:15It looks like this came from, like,
30:17an industrial commercial waste.
30:18Yes, definitely industrial.
30:20What does it say?
30:22A company in Italy and it has the Italy address.
30:26This is made in Italy.
30:32So they're hiding it.
30:34They put these bales of hay on either side.
30:37So no one can see it.
30:39They knew how to hide this waste here.
30:44They knew no one comes here by foot.
30:47Do you want to see what it looks like with a drone?
30:49To get up so we can actually see up top?
30:59It's just vast.
31:02Much more than I thought.
31:10You see it from the air and you see the big disaster.
31:17Yeah.
31:20How did this happen?
31:21The papers suggested that it came from Italy to be recycled here.
31:27But we do not have a recycled fabric here.
31:30So it was clear this waste was brought here to be abandoned.
31:38This case is currently being investigated by the Romanian authorities.
31:45We follow the trail east to Cluj.
31:49On the edge of one of the country's largest landfills,
31:52local artist Istvan discovered very similar waste.
31:58All this here is Italian waste.
32:01And how long has it been here?
32:03It was exactly the same month when the mafia connected Italian waste was brought to Bihor County.
32:10The thing that's really remarkable is how similar they are.
32:13The consistency, the shape, the size, all match.
32:16It's been established officially that it came from Italy.
32:20But actually they have papers only for the quarter of the quantity, but nobody cares.
32:23So wait, so there's more than there should be here?
32:27Yeah, of course.
32:29According to Istvan, a fraction of the waste was declared on the official paperwork.
32:33The majority is undisclosed, unregulated and unsafe.
32:39And has simply been added to the 2,500 tonnes left to rot at Pateröd.
32:45Istvan wants to show me the scale of the problem here.
32:51Sorry?
32:56His uniform says he is working for the local administration.
33:00What did he say?
33:01Do I care about...?
33:02He's threatening your dog?
33:04Yes.
33:04Every time I come here, I end up getting in trouble.
33:08Because always they are threatening me, threatening my dog, threatening whatever.
33:14There's a pack of barking dogs and a very angry man with a stick.
33:21This is a very good spot to see the whole of Mordor.
33:30The waste is five storeys high and been described as an environmental ticking time bomb.
33:39The EU has demanded Pateröd's closure after giving millions of euros to help build a new waste disposal plant,
33:46which is still not fully operational, almost a decade later.
33:50The biggest crow colony in Europe, feeding on the dump, yes.
33:54There's hundreds of crows there!
33:55Yes, thousands of crows, yes.
33:58This is such a total catastrophe.
34:00Is the land here toxic?
34:02Yes, it's highly toxic.
34:03There are even paper evidences that they dumped several ten tons of heavy metal.
34:09And the heavy metal concentrations are like a thousand times like the top alert level.
34:16And this is on their official documents and still they never did anything about it.
34:26Thousands of the Roma community live right next to the dump, with little access to running water and electricity.
34:33The dumping of international unregulated waste is further polluting their home.
34:40Racism is really hardcore in Romania.
34:42And the people that we love to hate the most are the Roma.
34:49This is exposing thousands of people to hardcore toxicity.
34:56Istvan has introduced me to Pepe, from the local Roma community.
35:00Pepe!
35:05They're all your dogs!
35:07All right, we've got an entourage now.
35:09This is good.
35:11That's so nice, they made like a little arm with their hands.
35:13I mean, children play with whatever they have, you know.
35:17Here in the community, there's no park.
35:21What kind of problems do you have from living so close to the dump?
35:26It's like living close to a nuclear plant.
35:28I mean, you are constantly bombarded with pollution that comes out from the rotten garbage.
35:34The smell makes you sick in the stomach and most of the people develop cancer really fast.
35:41First, the old ones were developing respiratory problems, stomach problems and liver problems.
35:49And also rashes and all kinds of stuff.
35:52I don't know what caused this because we were trying to get the local authorities to make tests and to
36:00tell us if this area is polluted or not.
36:02For 10 years, they didn't say nothing.
36:05This year, the city council admitted that the Pataret area is really hard polluted.
36:12So they needed 10 years to admit.
36:14To do a test?
36:15Yeah.
36:17The European Commission has now started legal action against Romania for their mismanagement of 15 landfills, including Pataret.
36:26But they've done little to tackle the Italian mafias who run the trade.
36:32This is dirty business.
36:33It's business that, you know, governments can't really solve.
36:36There are very few treatment facilities in Eastern Europe that can deal with, you know, large volumes of garbage.
36:43And the mafia is just taking advantage of that situation.
36:48While governments look the other way, the high rewards of this trade has attracted an even bigger fish.
36:55Italy's most powerful mafia, the Andrangheta.
36:59They're trafficking far more dangerous waste on an even bigger scale.
37:04In 2005, a former foot soldier claimed the Andrangheta had sunk ships loaded with radioactive waste into the Mediterranean Sea.
37:14Declassified Italian Secret Service documents suggested it could be as many as 50 ships.
37:22It triggered worldwide investigations by prosecutors, police and journalists, which are still ongoing today.
37:31I've come to Calabria, the region the Andrangheta has controlled with terror and violence for decades.
37:39No one knows this more acutely than journalist Michele Albanese.
37:44He was awarded Italy's highest accolade, the honour of merit, for his exposés on the Andrangheta.
37:52It must be him with his three-body cuff.
37:56Michele.
37:57Ciao.
37:57I'm glad that we could talk. I want to understand your situation right now.
38:02What is life for you like every day?
38:04I have six years, a few months, I live under scorta.
38:11There are the guys from the State Police that follow me in all my movements.
38:16In July 2014, I was warned by police police that they had programmed an attack in my face.
38:39Why are you so calm? If I was you, I'd be a ball of nerves.
38:43I tried to appear as a free man, because you never need to give it to them.
38:51Neil, here there was a war.
38:54It caused, in general, only in the province of Reggio,
38:58more than 5-6 thousand deaths, even with women and children.
39:02The Andrangheta seems to be taking trash trafficking to a whole new level.
39:06How do they operate?
39:07It was certified by a series of relations made by Italian secret services
39:16and by telephone intercepts.
39:18The Andrangheta was also concerned about toxic and radioactive waste.
39:23There are various searches on the ships to lose.
39:27There were cars in the sea that were carried out by toxic and radioactive waste
39:32and thrown into the Mediterranean waters.
39:36But still today, there are no official findings of these refiuti.
39:42Imagine a ship that was thrown into a sea of 1,000 meters deep.
39:49It becomes difficult to recover it.
39:52The Andrangheta gained notoriety after kidnapping the grandson of the world's richest man,
39:58John Paul Getty III, in 1973.
40:01A multi-million dollar ransom was paid when they delivered his severed ear to a national newspaper.
40:08Since then, they've grown to be the world's most powerful criminal organization,
40:12with a presence in 31 countries.
40:16Drugs, arms, toxic waste and even embezzlement of EU funds
40:20earns them billions of euros a year.
40:26One time, the captain of the Andrangheta didn't know how to speak Italian.
40:30Today, they speak three or four languages.
40:33They know how the recycling system works.
40:36They know what are the fiscal paradigms.
40:39They don't have the coppola and the lupara.
40:43They walk in the jacket and the car.
40:45They know how to stay in the city londinese or the fiscal paradigms of Panama.
40:49The danger is the global criminal system that is built among them
40:56and that is likely to attack the freedom of the world.
41:06An alliance of Calabrian families, bonded by blood ties,
41:11the Andrangheta are impossible to infiltrate.
41:14If one family is arrested, another takes their place.
41:20There's almost no country where you don't have Andrangheta presence.
41:24They were the first to syndicate crime.
41:26So they got to that level where, you know,
41:29they don't really have to, you know, kill people anymore.
41:34Because others will do that for them.
41:36They can syndicate drug trafficking.
41:38They can provide the financial services through the banks that they own.
41:42So they're more like a criminal logistics company right now
41:47that gives the other criminal groups the tools, the software, the contacts,
41:56the political corruption to carry on with the business.
41:59And they sit back and take a cut of that.
42:03I've come to meet prosecutor Alessandro Dolce,
42:06who for the last 20 years has been trying to bring the Andrangheta to justice.
42:12The Andrangheta has been involved for many years,
42:16especially in the trafficking of drugs.
42:20And this has done so much for a number of companies.
42:24And the other industries are the Andrangheta in?
42:38The Andrangheta in?
42:40The Andrangheta in?
42:42Which other industries are the Andrangheta in?
42:50The Andrangheta, we call it a service company,
42:56because it is able to make more effectively the services that the State makes.
43:04How successful are you in getting these Andrangheta mafia members in prison?
43:10We have done in the past a process in front of 185 detained.
43:20We were closed in the bunker room for 124 audiences from the morning to the evening
43:28and the evening, and it was very stressful.
43:32We didn't know the organisation and the governance of the Andrangheta.
43:41From which we came out only with the death.
43:44There are very few witnesses.
43:47The justice collaborators.
43:50Are you in danger?
43:52Giovanni Falcone.
43:54Dicevo sempre.
43:56Chi ha paura muore un po' per volta ogni giorno.
44:03Chi non ha paura muore una volta sola.
44:07E lui non avuto paura.
44:10Top anti-mafia prosecutor, Falcone was assassinated in a car bomb
44:15by the Costa Nostra mafia in 1992.
44:18The threat for Prosecutor Dolce still looms large.
44:36A lot of responsibility on your shoulders.
44:51The Indrangheta now make billions of euros a year from the toxic waste trade.
44:59It's ultimately about these people imposing their will and imposing their criminal culture onto populations, onto places, onto towns.
45:08And this is what's very, very damaging to everybody, ultimately, because it's like a cancer that keeps on growing and
45:18growing.
45:19Unless people see waste as a healthcare emergency, groups like the Indrangheta will only be more successful.
45:53The Indrangheta.