Criminal Planet (2021) s01e05 Episode Script

-International organized
crime has no natural predator.
-[ Yells in foreign language ]
-Crime syndicates are expanding
and forging alliances
across the globe.
-[ Speaking Spanish ]
-As law enforcement
struggles to stop them,
up to 5% of the global
economy is now in criminal hands.
-I'm Paul Radu, and
for the past 20 years,
I have investigated
international organized crime,
in the tune of $400 billion,
and this is a very, very small
slice of what's really going on.
-I think there are
some people --
Let's go, let's go.
-In this series, I'm working
with a team of reporters
around the world
-Are you angry with
yourself for being part of this?
-[ Yelling in Italian ]
-to discover how a
generation of international gangs
are redrawing the criminal map.
♪♪
-Naples is the home of Italy's
largest and oldest Mafia --
the Camorra.
[ Gunfire ]
For decades, they've
used extreme violence
to force businesses to
pay millions in extortion
and have infiltrated most parts
of the economy to launder money
made from international
drug trafficking.
But the Camorra have
also pioneered a new form
of trafficking --
profiting from the 11
billion tons of waste
we produce every year.
It's an inordinate amount,
and it's no surprise
that a third of that waste
is being disposed of in
unsafe or even illegal ways.
I've come to Italy
to meet the people
who are suffering in the
system and to meet the Mafia
making billions out of
disposing waste illegally.
♪♪
To understand how the
Camorra turn garbage into gold,
you have to go
back to the 1990s.
As they expanded
their international
drug-trafficking business,
the Camorra assassinated
anyone who stood in their way.
In 1994, Naples declared
a state of emergency,
not because of the
escalating homicide rates,
but because of a waste crisis.
When the state
hastily issued contracts
to new waste-disposal companies,
the Camorra spotted a new,
lucrative business venture.
♪♪
Over the last 30 years,
operating behind
front companies,
the Camorra have won
profitable waste contracts
from heavy
industry across Italy.
They've dumped
millions of tons in Naples
and the surrounding
region of Campagna.
Just got a call from
one of the contributors
that I was hoping to
speak to here in Naples.
He's saying that there
are fires right now, burning,
and he's asked me to
go to him immediately
to see exactly what's going on.
When the Camorra dump
a new load of illegal waste,
they often cover their
tracks by burning it.
I can see it.
Yeah, it's over there.
Well, they chose a perfect
place to dump, right?
It's very difficult to get to.
It's in between, like, a
spaghetti junction of highways.
It can go unnoticed
for quite some time,
but I can see the
smoke billowing.
-[Conversing in Italian ]
-What about the waste?
Are they -- are they
dumping stuff and burning it?
There's a fire here.
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-Okay, we're gonna
go and see now.
Hold on tight.
Should we just try on foot
because we're not gonna
be able to drive up to it.
So, it looks like
the fire people
have just put the fire out.
It's absolutely gigantic.
It's huge.
The ground is still smoldering.
♪♪
-Whenever there's a problem
that governments fail to solve,
organized crime comes
in and finds opportunity.
This garbage needed to be
moved, and they've already built
the infrastructure over
the years to move anything
from drugs to humans to weapons.
This was a way to
legitimize, to launder money,
and the quantity of waste
that's constantly growing
would become in itself a
great source of revenue.
It was a win-win
situation for them.
Of course, they will not
try to get rid of the
waste in the proper way
because that is
very, very expensive.
So, by not actually investing
in the treatment of the waste,
they make a lot of money
because they get paid
by the waste generators,
and they bury it
or they just dump it.
There's almost no penalty
for trafficking of waste.
It's very low risk,
it's high returns,
it's great business
for the Mafia.
♪♪
♪♪
-Excuse me, how
often are you doing this?
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-[ Speaking Italian ]
I don't even know
what I'm breathing in.
The air here is toxic.
The land has been destroyed.
They've dumped
whatever they wanted to
and now I'm covered
intrafficked trash ash.
And it's just such an
awful smell and taste
in the back of my throat,
you can't even imagine.
♪♪
Local resident Enzo
has been documenting
the devastation
caused by the Camorra.
Can you tell me
what's happened here?
How big was the fire and
what were they burning?
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-There are laws
regulating the disposal
of hazardous substances,
but there's little profit
in following costly
treatment procedures,
so the Camorra simply dump
the waste and their toxins,
enabling them to
undercut their competitors.
Oh, my God.
This is here?
Fires started by the
Camorra are so commonplace
that the region is now
known as the Land of Fires.
What's the hardest thing for you
when you see
something like this?
♪♪
I'm just spending
a few hours here,
but Enzo and a lot of
people have to live in this.
This is completely
part of their lives.
And I can't even begin to kind
of understand what it must take,
how angry you must feel to
know that this goes on and --
and nobody's watching.
♪♪
The Camorra have dumped waste
in thousands of illegal
sites across Campagna.
Arsenic, asbestos, and
dangerous heavy metals
leak into local drinking
water, people's food,
and the air they breathe.
The illegal waste trade
earns the Camorra
billions of Euros a year.
♪♪
I've come to meet
an ex-Camorra boss
who was involved in
setting up this dirty business.
♪♪
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-Hi.
After serving a
20-year sentence,
Nunzio broke the
Camorra's code of silence,
the omertà, and
became a state informant.
He now lives with
a price on his head.
Oh.
What did you have to
do to get to that rank?
I mean, was there
violence involved?
Yes.
How did you even get
involved in trash trafficking?
Mm-hmm.
Wow.
How did you justify
that to yourself?
Like, you know
this trash is toxic.
Do you remember
what you were thinking?
You're 20, 30 years old,
what were you thinking
when you were doing this?
Okay. Yeah.
Nunzio claims heavy industry
knew the Camorra were not
disposing of the waste safely,
and politicians and
judges were paid off
to avoid enforcing
environmental laws.
What happened to this?
Mm.
An alliance of clans, with
over 4,500 foot soldiers,
the Camorra exert control over
Campagna through violence.
[ Camera shutter clicks ]
Nunzio left this area years ago
and is fearful of
retribution on his return.
It's Nunzio. Nunzio.
Nunzio, hello.
-Ciao, hello.
-What?
-We have to be very quick.
-Si.
He's scared. Si, si. Yes, okay.
We will be careful.
-Okay.
-Okay, he's already out of
his car. He's gone ahead.
Um
So, what are we looking at?
What's -- what is over here?
There?
Uh-huh.
And what would you dump here?
What sort of things
do you remember
putting into the ground?
Radioactive?
Nunzio, what is this doing
to the people that
live in those houses?
You're so angry at
what's happened here.
Are you angry with yourself
for -- for being part of this?
Okay. Okay, let's go.
Come on, let's go. I
think this is too much now.
Nunzio cannot know who will
get sick from the waste he dumped,
but the region of Campagna
does have the highest
cancer mortality rate in Italy.
An area 25 kilometers
north of Naples
became known as
the triangle of death.
This is where the Camorra
dumped most of their waste.
Over the last few decades,
there have been alarmingly
high levels of leukemia
amongst children here.
♪♪
-Marcia Catropoli
lives in a nearby town
with the highest child
mortality rate in Italy.
Her son, Antonio,
developed a cancerous
brain tumor aged just 9.
One year of chemotherapy
could not save him.
-[ Speaking Italian ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-God.
♪♪
♪♪
[ Bell rings ]
Local priest Don
Patricello has seen
a large number of children
from the town die from cancers
usually associated
with the elderly.
-[ Singing in Italian ]
[ Speaking in Italian ]
-The people here have
endured decades of violence
from the Camorra.
Now their toxic-waste
trade is harming children,
they're turning against the
Camorra and the politicians.
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-They've come to
the streets today
as the Minister of the
Environment Sergio Costa
is in town to launch
a clean-up project.
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-In 2014 and '15, the EU
fined the Italian
government millions of Euros
for their continued failure
to tackle the toxic waste.
This is obviously a big
deal for the local community,
and there's lots of
newspapers and journalists.
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-Why are you doing this?
But we're talking to him.
I'm just doing my job.
-Okay.
-Thank you.
Do you think that this is
gonna change anything?
♪♪
We followed the
minister to his next event.
People here have
little faith in politicians
to tackle the Camorra.
They've corrupted
local politicians,
judges, and the police
over many decades.
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-[ Yelling in Italian ]
-[ Yelling in Italian ]
-Just waiting for the minister.
The people today
were very, uh, vocal.
They were very loud.
They seemed to be
speaking from a pain
that's deep inside them.
That is the visible
part of the problem.
The toxic chemicals,
the ill health of the
local community,
the air, the food,
this is gonna take
decades to solve.
But you're fighting
the traffickers.
They are the Camorra,
they are the Mafia.
How can you fight them?
Si.
Si, si, si.
Tracing the Camorra's
cash is not easy.
The police have seized
their luxury mansions
and millions of Euros in
assets, but over many decades,
the Camorra have
permeated the local economy,
laundering and hiding
their money in agriculture,
restaurants, supermarkets,
even car parks.
Seizing the billions the
Camorra make would mean
tearing apart the
fabric of Naples society.
♪♪
-I've come back to
meet local activist Enzo.
Working with
anti-Mafia group Libera,
Enzo is now transforming
confiscated Camorra properties
for the community.
What does this say?
With the Mafia
practically next door,
I'm not surprised Enzo
has installed CCTV.
That sounds like a plan.
The culture war is now working.
After years of public pressure,
the Camorra is
finally starting to bend,
trafficking the majority
of its waste overseas.
-Their image was badly
tainted because people realized
that the Camorra
was doing something
that was detrimental
to their health,
so this is why they wanted
to put some distance
between what they
were collecting in Italy
and the dumping grounds.
-The Camorra is
trafficking waste to countries
with weaker
environmental controls,
exporting the illness they've
wrought on their own community.
[ Speaking Italian ]
-Hi.
-I've come to meet
Italy's finance police,
the Guardia di Finanza, who
work closely with customs.
On average, 300,000 containers
come through here every year.
The Camorra falsify paperwork
and corrupt some port officials
to ensure the waste
gets through undetected.
So, Tenente, is this
coming for scan?
-Yes.
[ Speaking Italian ]
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-You two agree
that this looks dodgy.
It looks like it could
be trafficked waste.
Okay. Okay.
I'm gonna stand back, and I'm
gonna watch you do your job.
-Open.
-Ah. Why did they
put a car in here?
Oh.
Si.
It seems that one person's waste
is another person's profit.
-Yeah.
-Is this a mixture of
personal belongings
and things that they
want to sell commercially?
Is it designed to hide the
truth that this is trafficking?
-Yes, yes, yes.
-I mean, it can't
get more Italian
than trying to bribe
folks with wine and pasta.
-Yes.
-It's full of trash.
-Yes.
-Just waste.
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-Oh, the good stuff.
Better. What do you see?
-A Mini.
-A Mini Cooper car?
-Yes.
-I'm in the container
right now and I just --
'Cause there's no way the camera
is going to be
able to get up here,
but there's a Mini
Cooper, there's mattresses,
there's absolutely
countless bits of tires, TVs.
They've even remembered
to bring in the kitchen sink.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
-In 2017, the
trafficking of waste
became an even
more lucrative business.
China, who used to recycle
50% of the world's waste,
banned all foreign imports.
This opened the
way for the Camorra
to expand their
international network.
It's estimated they traffic
thousands of tons of waste
into Eastern Europe.
Much of it arrives in Romania,
which has been dubbed
the dustbin of Europe.
♪♪
-The Mafias like to invest
in countries where the
rule of law is weaker,
where it's easier to -- to
bribe, where there's poverty,
because for them, again,
crisis situations are opportunities.
And Romania is one of those.
You see people in
the local governments,
people in the
environmental agency,
officials in the borders.
So, they really
corrupt all across.
They create a trail of
corruption that serves them
while the citizens are
victims of all of this.
When you go to
Transylvania, where I grew up,
and you see garbage dumped
in all these mountainous slopes,
in the -- in the forests,
it's sad because you realize
how much this changes places.
♪♪
-I've come to Bihor
County in Romania,
where trucks illegally
dump 700 tons of waste
from Italy behind a farm.
Local journalist Adriana
is investigating the case.
♪♪
-Here it is.
-It's just ripped-up clothes.
-I see clothes and I see,
I don't know, plastics.
-It's rotting.
-Yes.
-Smells terrible.
It looks like this came from,
like, industrial-commercial
waste.
-Yes, definitely is industrial.
-What does it say?
-A company in Italy, and
it has the Italy address.
-This was made in Italy.
[ Dog barking ]
So, they're hiding it.
They put these bales
of hay on either side.
-So no one can see it.
They knew how to
hide this waste here.
They knew no one
comes here by foot.
-Do you wanna see what
it looks like with a drone?
To get up, so we can
actually see up top?
♪♪
It's just vast.
-Much more than I thought.
♪♪
You see it from the air,
and you see the big disaster.
-Yeah.
How did this happen?
-The papers
suggested that it came
from Italy to be recycled here.
But we do not have recycled
fabric here, so it was clear
this waste was brought
here to be abandoned.
♪♪
-This case is currently
being investigated
by the Romanian authorities.
We follow the
trail east to Cluj.
On the edge of one of the
country's largest landfills,
local artist Ishtfan
discovered very similar waste.
♪♪
-All this here is Italian waste.
-And how long has it been here?
-It was exactly the same
month when the Mafia collected,
Italian waste was
brought to Bihor County.
-The thing that's
really remarkable
is how similar they are.
-The consistency, the
shape, the size, all match.
It's been established
officially that it came from Italy.
But actually they have papers
only for a quarter of the
quantity, but nobody cares.
-So, wait, so there's more
than there should be here?
-Yeah, of course.
-According to Ishtfan,
a fraction of the waste
was declared on
the official paperwork.
The majority is undisclosed,
unregulated, and unsafe,
and has simply been
added to the 2,500 tons
left to rot at Pata Rat.
Ishtfan wants to show me
the scale of the problem here.
-[ Speaking Romanian ]
-Sorry?
-[ Speaking Romanian ]
His uniform says he's working
for the local administration.
-What did he say?
-Do I care about? No, I don't.
-He's threatening your dog?
-Yes.
Every time I come here,
I end up getting in trouble
because always they
are threatening me,
threatening my dog,
threatening whatever.
♪♪
-There's a pack of barking dogs
and a very angry
man with a stick.
-This is a very good spot
to see the whole of Mordor.
♪♪
-The waste is five stories
high and been described
as an environmental
ticking time bomb.
♪♪
The EU has demanded
Pata Rat's closure
after giving millions of Euros
to help build a new
waste-disposal plant,
which is still not
fully operational
almost a decade later.
-The biggest crow
colony in Europe,
feeding on the dump, yes.
-There's hundreds
of crows there.
-Yes, thousands of crows, yes.
This is such a
total catastrophe.
-Is the land here toxic?
-Yes. It's highly toxic.
There are even paper evidences
that they dumped several
tons of heavy metal,
and the heavy metal
concentrations are,
like, thousand times,
like, the top alert level.
And this is on their
official documents
and still they never
did anything about it.
-Thousands of the Roma
community live right next to the dump
with little access to
running water and electricity.
The dumping of international,
unregulated waste
is further polluting their home.
-Racism is really
hard-core in Romania,
and the people that we love
to hate the most are the Roma.
♪♪
This is exposing thousands
of people to hard-core toxicity.
-Ishtfan has
introduced me to Pepe
from the local Roma community.
Pepe.
[ Dogs barking ]
They're all your dogs?
Alright, we've got
an entourage now.
-Yeah.
-This is good.
That's so nice.
They made, like, a
little art with their hands.
-Yeah. I mean, children play
with whatever they
have, you know.
Here in the community,
there's no park.
-What kind of
problems do you have
from living so
close to the dump?
-It's like living close
to a nuclear plant.
I mean, you are constantly
bombarded with pollution
that comes out from
the rotten garbage.
The smell makes you
sick in the stomach,
and most of the people
develop cancer real fast.
First, the old ones was
developing respiratory problems,
stomach problems,
then the liver problems,
and also rashes and all
kinds of stuff, you know.
I don't know what caused
this because we were trying
to get the local
authorities to make tests
and to tell us if this
area is polluted or not.
-Yeah.
-For 10 years, they
didn't say nothing.
This year, the city council
admitted that the Pata Rat area
is really hard polluted.
So, they needed 10
years to -- to admit.
-To do a test.
-Yeah.
-The European Commission
has now started legal action
against Romania for their
mismanagement of 15 landfills,
including Pata Rat.
But they've done little to
tackle the Italian Mafias
who run the trade.
-This is dirty business.
It's business that, you know,
governments can't really solve.
There are very few treatment
facilities in Eastern Europe
that can deal with, you know,
large volumes of -- of garbage.
And the Mafia is just taking
advantage of that situation.
-While governments
look the other way,
the high reward of this trade
has attracted an
even bigger fish.
Italy's most powerful
Mafia -- the 'Ndrangheta.
They're trafficking far
more dangerous waste
on an even bigger scale.
In 2005, a former
foot soldier claimed
the 'Ndrangheta had sunk ships
loaded with radioactive waste
into the Mediterranean Sea.
Declassified Italian
Secret Service documents
suggested it could be
as many as 50 ships.
It triggered worldwide
investigations by prosecutors,
police, and journalists,
which are still ongoing today.
I've come to Calabria,
the region the 'Ndrangheta
has controlled with terror
and violence for decades.
No one knows this more acutely
than journalist
Michele Albanese.
He was awarded
Italy's highest accolade,
the Honor of Merit, for his
exposés on the 'Ndrangheta.
That must be him with
his two bodyguards.
Michele.
-Ciao.
-I'm glad that we could talk.
I want to understand
your situation right now.
What is life for
you like every day?
-[ Speaking Italian ]
-Why are you so calm?
If I was you, I'd
be a ball of nerves.
-[ Sighs ]
-The 'Ndrangheta seem
to be taking trash trafficking
to a whole new level.
How do they operate?
Si.
The 'Ndrangheta gained notoriety
after kidnapping the grandson
of the world's richest man,
John Paul Getty III, in 1973.
A multi-million dollar
ransom was paid
when they delivered his severed
ear to a national newspaper.
Since then, they've
grown to be the world's
most powerful
criminal organization
with a presence in 31 countries.
Drugs, arms, toxic waste, and
even embezzlement of EU funds
earns them billions
of Euros a year.
-An alliance of
Calabrian families,
bonded by blood ties,
the 'Ndrangheta are
impossible to infiltrate.
If one family is arrested,
another takes their place.
-There's almost no country
where you don't have
'Ndrangheta presence.
They were the first
to syndicate crime.
So, they got to that
level where, you know,
they don't really have to,
you know, kill people anymore
because others will
-- will do that for them.
They can syndicate
drug trafficking.
They can provide
the financial services
through the banks that they own.
So, they're more like a
criminal logistics company
right now that gives the
other criminal groups the tools,
the software, the
-- the contacts,
the political corruption,
to carry on with the business.
And they sit back
and take a cut of that.
-I've come to meet
prosecutor Alessandra Dolci,
who for the last 20 years
has been trying to bring
the 'Ndrangheta to justice.
-[ Speaking Italian ]
Which other industries
are the 'Ndrangheta in?
How successful are you in --
in getting these 'Ndrangheta
Mafia members in prison?
Are you in danger?
Top anti-Mafia
prosecutor Falcone
was assassinated in a car bomb
by the Cosa Nostra
Mafia in 1992.
The threat for Prosecutor
Dolci still looms large.
A lot of responsibility
on your shoulders.
♪♪
The 'Ndrangheta now
makes billions of Euros a year
from the toxic-waste trade.
-It's ultimately about these
people imposing their will
and imposing their criminal
culture onto populations,
onto places, onto towns.
And this is what's
very, very damaging
to everybody, ultimately,
'cause it's like a cancer that
keeps on growing and growing.
And unless people see waste
as a healthcare emergency,
groups like the 'Ndrangheta
will only be more successful.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪