Being in the front lines has its risks. Last month, Capacchione came home to find things had been moved around in her apartment — she lives alone — though nothing of material value was missing. “They took a journalism prize I had won,” she said. “That one meant a lot to me.”
She does not know who did it. She does know that her police escort will only protect her so much. “If they wanted to kill me, they’d kill me with or without an escort here or abroad,” she said.
Capacchione prides herself on her “scientific” approach — reading the signs, combing through court documents. In one trial, she noticed that prosecutors had not provided as much background information on one defendant as they had on the others. “I went and filled in the missing pieces.”
It is a battle of wits and wills between the Camorristi and the authorities. “The most fun thing is when you find smart authorities fighting smart criminals,” she said. “It becomes like a chess game.”
In the land of the Camorra, there is a blurry line between legality and illegality. It is not uncommon to find organized crime figures with relatives in public office, law enforcement, the judicial system or other state operations like health care, Capacchione said. “If I buy a sentence, it means that someone sold it,” she said.
While the Camorra may rely less on politicians today, she said politicians still relied on the Camorra to deliver votes. And it is hard for citizens to distinguish between criminals and non-criminals.
“You never know,” Capacchione said. “Or even worse, you do know.”
A study last year found that organized crime was the largest segment of the Italian economy, accounting for 7 percent of Italy’s gross domestic product, or US$127 billion a year.
So what’s the solution? “I don’t know,” Capacchione said. “It’s a complex problem.” Over the years “they’ve arrested hundreds and hundreds of people.”
Indeed, since the mid-1990s, More than 500 people have been arrested and more than 4,000 investigated as part of operations like the continuing “Spartacus” trial, one of the most complex in Italian history. “My book is the story of investigations,” she says.
And yet nothing changes. The clan members “regenerate themselves.” As a reporter, “I’m on the third generation,” she notes. “They live short lives.”
That everyone knows there is a problem and yet no one — not the government, not the church, not the military — applies the political will to solve it can seem worse than the problem itself.
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