REPORTER:  Nick Lazaredes

On the streets of Naples the stakes are high and the cops are jumpy. This is Italy's most dangerous city and with violent crime spiralling upwards, Naples is heaving under the strain. Law enforcement agencies are being overwhelmed - unable to stop the advance of Italy's most powerful and violent Mafia-style clan, the Camorra. The battle to contain the Camorra is decades old but recently its body count has soared.

VITTORIO PISANI, NAPLES POLICE (Translation): Violence and killings are the bread and butter of organised crime, which has a physiological need to shoot people.

In the face of this formidable threat, Italy's government remains hamstrung by apathy and inaction, leaving its battle-weary Mafia prosecutors feeling abandoned.

FRANCO ROBERTI, PROSECUTOR (Translation): The judiciary needs to feel the government is on its side, that’s not happening right now.

It's early evening in Castelvolturno, just to the north of Naples. A once-sleepy family resort town it's been transformed into a deadly playground for the Camorra's killers. I'm here to meet a woman who's spent most of her career trying to nail the Camorra's henchmen. A member of Italy's peak anti-Mafia body – the DIA - Silvana Giusti has closely tracked the killing spree which began with the murder of a local businessman last May.

SILVANA GIUSTI, ANTI MAFIA AUTHORITY (Translation): He was gunned down right here, he stopped to buy the paper in this newsagency and was killed in the middle of the road, in that spot.

As the death toll has grown, Silvana Giusti's informers have picked up on a dangerous new development – uncovering evidence that the region's numerous and fiercely independent Camorra clans have started combining their efforts.

SILVANA GIUSTI (Translation): in particular, along the border of the two provinces, between Caserta and Naples, some clans have even exchanged killers. They have exchanged hit men to carry out assassinations.

In just a few months, the Camorra murdered almost a dozen people but no-one was prepared for its next atrocity.

PETER: You can see the bullet. You can see they write RIP – rest in perfect peace. It is very brutal this thing. They just make totally 145 bullets in 45 seconds, and 6 died.

REPORTER: It was a machine gun?

PETER: It was a machine gun.

Six young black men – all poor, African migrants – were machine-gunned by a Camorra hit squad as they stood outside a tailor's shop in Castelvolturno.

SILVANA GIUSTI (Translation): They were gunned down by a gang made up of Camorra killers led by Giuseppe Setola. This is the shop inside which those poor lads were.

Silvana Giusti says a small group of Africans in Castelvolturno were defiantly selling drugs on Camorra turf. But rather than target the offending dealers the clans decided to inflict a collective punishment on the entire African community, choosing the victims at random, simply because they were black.

SILVANA GIUSTI (Translation): They arrived here in cars and started shooting immediately, so they killed these people who had little or nothing to do with international drug trafficking.

Now, the massacre has reignited an uncomfortable debate over Italy's treatment of its exploding population of undocumented black migrants, thrusting this obscure coastal town into the spotlight. To gauge the depth of the drug problem in Castelvolturno, I’ve joined local law enforcement authorities on a routine inspection of the town’s drug dens. The officers have come to a place locals call "the drug hotel" – an abandoned holiday complex which now serves as the base for the town’s addicts. Cheap and widely available - heroin is the drug of choice.
Today, with the exception of a pregnant Italian woman hiding in a corner – all the drug users here are Africans. And according to officials they're part of a tidal wave of undocumented migrants who've settled here – many of them from Nigeria.

LUIGI ACERRA, FINANCE POLICE: It's very serious in this town. Before it was only Italians – now there are a lot of black people. It’s hard to work over here because these black people - we don’t understand when they speak because they’re Nigerian.

With their resources already stretched to the limit, the authorities here are barely coping with Castelvolturno’s burgeoning population of black migrants in a town awash with Camorra supplied drugs.

LUIGI ACERRA: 99% – the Camorra has control of the drugs over here.

REPORTER: This is really a serious problem for you, isn’t it? This type of thing?

LUIGI ACERRA: Yeah, the Camorra command things, they say what you have to do – if you don’t want to do what they say, they’ll kill you.

Incredibly, in the face of the Camorra’s brutal domination some African gangs are forging their own drug trade, with a handful of Nigerian crime syndicates transforming Castelvolturno into one of the biggest trafficking hubs in Europe.

SILVANA GIUSTI (Translation): Castelvolturno is after their own capital, the most important strategic point for the Nigerian community as far as international trafficking is concerned. They have set themselves up in Castelvolturno like a major crime syndicate. So they are well organised and have international contacts, especially in South American countries which is where they get cocaine.

In fact, Italian police intelligence reports indicate these brazen Nigerian syndicates aren't just sidelining the Camorra – they've even cut Columbia’s drug barons out of their deals, buying cocaine direct from the South American growers.

SILVANA GIUSTI (Translation): Our investigations have revealedthat the Nigerians buy directly from farmers. From farmers who grow coca.

But while African gangs gain influence triggering the Camorra's

PETER: This boy - this boy, OK – they have killed him here. They have killed him here.

REPORTER: Here on the steps?

PETER: Yeah, on the steps.

For community leaders like Peter the murder of the six Africans signalled a dangerous turning point.

PETER: I'm angry because this is the first in history in the European Union - 45 seconds, 145 bullets - six souls have been killed, and that six souls is not the European, they’re Africans. Why? That’s what we ask the Italian authorities – why?

In late December, members of Castelvolturno’s African community gathered at the murder scene to remember the victims and make a statement. Although several months had passed, their grief was raw and their fear – tangible.

REPORTER: Are people afraid here? Are black people afraid here in Castelvolturno?

MAN: Yes, yes, yes. All people afraid, everybody is afraid for here.

And with a massacre that was so clearly racially motivated, there was a real sense of community anger.

WOMAN: It's a racist crime – and it must stop. We are not criminals - immigrants. We are not criminals. We are here to work. We didn't travel from Africa to come and to be killed.

What's partly fuelling the anger in this community is the lack of any real sense of national outrage about the murders. For a community on the bottom rung of Italy’s social ladder the perception that most Italians simply don’t care about what's happening here is a bitter pill to swallow.

WOMAN: White and black – all - we are the same thing. Blood, we are the same thing. Black or white, we are the same thing.

MAN: They don’t care what we feel here because we saw our brothers lying down dead.

FRANCO ROBERTI (Translation): Of course there was also a racist component in this shocking massacre, which is not the first one perpetrated against North African immigrants.

Veteran Mafia prosecutor Franco Roberti sympathises with Castelvolturno's Africans about the absence of any national outrage over the massacre and he's deeply concerned about the widening social ramifications of the Camorra's violent upsurge.

FRANCO ROBERTI (Translation): Sadly, massacres are not new in the history of the camorra, and sometimes we forget about them and that is very wrong.

Now, in an unprecedented move, the Italian Army has been mobilised to help contain the Camorra's growing threat. In the region surrounding Naples, soldiers man roadblocks, conducting random searches around the clock. Like this unit near the City of Caserta – a Camorra stronghold that's home to its most powerful and vicious clan. But in real terms, it has achieved little – neither thwarting the Camorra’s fierce growth nor its special capacity for engineering corruption at all levels of government.

SILVANA GIUSTI (Translation): Compared to other forms of organised crime, the Caserta based Camorra is much more effective and capable of infiltrating all areas of institutions in order to have a say in government, be it at local, provincial or regional level.

From a ramshackle office adorned with Hollywood cop action heroes, members of the Naples police unit known as the Falcon Squad get ready for another night on the city's mean streets. Tonight they're pursuing a tip-off about one of the Camorra's less dramatic, but still highly lucrative trades - cigarette smuggling. But in Naples' poor inner-city communities, there’s rarely a warm welcome when the police come knocking.

POLICE (Translation): We are the police not the Camorra. Relax, it’s just a search.

Within minutes, the tip-off yields results – hundreds of cartons of cigarettes concealed in a pantry and the cops suspect there might be more contraband at hand.

WOMAN (Translation): But you won’t find anything here, I’m telling you! I only have cigarettes. I told you when you came in.

Soon dozens of other boxes are discovered containing what appear to be stolen goods. But the woman who lives here with her children is unrepentant, trying to convince the police to turn a blind eye.

POLICE (Translation): There is a lot of stuff here.

WOMAN (Translation): Please don’t take everything.

The woman and her son are arrested and charged and their booty confiscated. Activities like this are at the bottom end of the Camorra's criminal enterprise but the police leap at any opportunity to curtail its growth. Depressingly, however, these cops also believe that the law is not behind them.

VITTORIO PISANI (Translation): In my opinion, today in Italy, the end result of investigations, that is, the sentences and penalties meted out to criminals, do not reflect the gravity of the crimes committed.

To illustrate his point, Naples anti-crime chief Vittorio Pisani says nearly 50 clan members arrested four years ago and charged with Mafia conspiracy were able, through plea bargaining and court concessions, to gain their freedom in record time.

VITTORIO PISANI (Translation): It is unacceptable that camorra members who had committed many murders and gained world wide notoriety, were released after just three years. What is needed most of all is tough action by the judiciary and that is lacking at the moment. We also need to improve social and economic conditions in certain areas, which is not being done right now.

As the state continues to disregard the plight of Italy's poorest communities – many of them in the Camorra's heartlands – a few brave souls are agitating for change at great personal risk.

FATHER ANIELLO MANGANIELLO (Translation): We established a daytime service up till 6pm, with activities like football and computer and drama studies especially for kids at risk, kids whose fathers are in jail or have been killed due to their involvement with the Camorra.

Father Aniello Manganiello works in the concrete jungle of Scampia on the outskirts of Naples. As Camorra territory, it is without a doubt one of the toughest parishes in Europe.

FATHER ANIELLO MANGANIELLO (Translation): The parents of our Sunday School kids are approached by members of the Camorra because they see them struggle financially, and they propose that they become drug couriers or keep drugs in their homes, offering huge remuneration, up to 10,000 euros.

Late last year, Father Aniello felt compelled to make a public stand against the Camorra choosing to denounce the clan on national television. Within hours of the broadcast Camorra's messengers confronted the priest, warning him to shut up or face certain death.

FATHER ANIELLO MANGANIELLO (Translation): people must not talk, nobody must talk about the Camorra’s business.

Father Aniello knew he was lucky to be left alive but what shocked him was the attitude of his local parishioners who shunned the priest. He now believes there is little chance of breaking the clan's evil grip over the community.

FATHER ANIELLO MANGANIELLO (Translation): That really hurt me very much. What really scares me is the code of silence and the way the community is growing used to it. So people don’t speak up, they withdraw, also they don’t feel protected by the police, they believe that there is no truth in sentencing and I believe that too. All these things give me a feeling of loneliness, they make me feel alone.

In Naples, with its ancient laneways and narrow winding streets, the Camorra have an ability to melt away when trouble arrives but the local cops have also developed some special skills. I've joined the Naples Falcon Squad again - this time on the back of a motorcycle, as they speed through the Camorra's cobbled stamping ground on the look out for trouble.
With an element of surprise and their prowess on the bikes, the Falcon Squad has notched up an impressive arrest record to match but with a legal system that seems to favour the criminals the police feel their efforts are being squandered.

VITTORIO PISANI (Translation): It is incomprehensible that a bag snatcher we recently arrested, who had committed umpteen crimes, was given an 18-month suspended sentence and sent home. Three years on, we are once again investigating the same people we investigated three years ago.

Unable to stop the Camorra's relentless sprawl, battle-weary crime fighters say that if Italians persist in looking the other way, its Mafia clans will continue to flourish.

FRANCO ROBERTI (Translation): Because organised crime thrives on appeasement, silence and oblivion.

At the same time veterans of the campaign to crush the Camorra like Franco Roberti, remain confident that if the community breaks the code of silence and rejects its criminal ethos, the clan’s reign of terror will quickly come to an end.

FRANCO ROBERTI (Translation): Like all human phenomena, they have a beginning and they will have an end. It’s up to each of us to do our part to accelerate the process of destroying the Camorra.

Reporter/Camera
NICK LAZAREDES

Researcher
VICTORIA STROBL

Editor
WAYNE LOVE

Producer
ASHLEY SMITH

Fixer
NINO NICOIS

Translations
LUCA PALAMARA (Italy)
ROBERTO STEVANONI
TONY PALUMBO

Subtitling
DONNA TIERI

Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN