The Napoleon mafia is already notorious for its contaminated mozzarella scandal in 2008, but apparently this was the mere surface of the problem. According to a diplomatic cable by WikiLeaks, the mafia found a new business: the importation of low-cost food with toxic ingredients.
Organized crime’s environmental impact extends to food frauds, and Campania leads the country in this sector.
Patrick Truhn, the US Consul General in Naples, transmitted this information in a diplomatic cable. The report was classified as “confidential” and later made public by WikiLeaks.
According to the former US consul in Naples, the Camorra is profiting from “low-cost imports” which are contaminated by bacteria or pesticides. Truhn notably mentions the apples from Moldova have a high level of pesticides, and salt imported from Morocco is infested with the toxic intestinal bacteria E. coli. As a false marketing strategy, the Camorra labels these products with “Made in Campania.”
“A perfect reflection”
The Camorra’s noxious business plan doesn’t stop there. The cable noted that a commander of the Naples’ Carabinieri claimed an estimated 2,000 bakeries (about two-thirds of the region’s total) are controlled by this mafia. These bakeries use “expired flour and ovens which emit toxic fumes (and the ‘wood’ is often old doors covered in paint).” Furthermore, the diplomat writes that the unsavory activities still affects the cheese industry:
Caserta has illegal cheese factories which mix buffalo milk with powdered milk from Bolivia, cutting retail mozzarella costs by a third; they also use lime to help ricotta ‘keep’ longer.
According to Il Messaggero, this cable is confirmed by the priest in Forcella, Don Luigi Merola. The priest, known for his strong stance against the mafia, asserted “the US Consul’s report is a perfect reflection of what is happening in Southern Italy.” Conversely the prosecutor of Naples, Giovandomenico Lepore, strongly denied the situation:
There is no current investigation that proves the claim the Camorra clan has imported pesticide-infested apples from Moldavia, nor contaminated salt from Morocco.
Operation “Clean Milk”: The previous mafia scandal
This is not the first time that the Camorra has benefited from poisonous products which endanger the lives of thousands of people. In 2008, a scandal broke out concerning the staple product of Naples: buffalo mozzarella. The land used to produce buffalo milk was contaminated because the Camorra buried and burned toxic waste from northern Italy on these farmlands. In turn the higher levels of dioxin in the soil infected the buffaloes and the milk they produce, the buffalo mozzarella, and potentially thousands of people who buy these products.
Operation “Clean Milk” was instated and supervised by an anti-mafia unit in Naples. 14% of the 173 cheese factories in Naples, Caserte, and Avellino exceeded the European Union’s threshold of dioxins permitted in the soil. 600 farms were quarantined, and 109 were charged with “poisoning and selling of food products.” Apparently some of these farms were completely in the hands of the mafia; certain farmers would be paid-off by the heads of the mafia for their willingness to dispose toxic waste on their lands.
On March 27, 2008, the European Commission expressed its doubts that the measures taken by the Italian officials were sufficient. In concern for the public health, the importation of buffalo mozzarella was suspended. Michel Barnier, the French Minister of Agriculture at the time, called for vendors to record of products that were not contaminated while they wait for further instructions. The former Italian Minister of Agriculture, Paolo De Castro, responded by appearing on television and eating Napoleon cheese. His efforts were in vain, as by that point no one was interested in buying the previously successful product of Campania. Dozens of producers endured significant losses of about 30 million euros over a two month period. This expounded the fact that in 2003 6,000 cows had to be slaughtered due to the levels of dioxin in the milk used for mozzarella.
Millions of euros at stake
The low-cost “Made in Italy” strategy is one the Camorra has played in the past. In 2006, the Italian television channel Rai Tre broadcasted a documentary on counterfeit food entitled ““. It depicted the events in Castelnuovo Rangone, a province in the north of Italy, where a judge found that many factories used to make sausage and ham imported these products from other areas. These pork products were resold as Italian ham, and they even marketed certain products as very expensive “Parma Ham.” Some of these factories were controlled by a subdivision of the Camorra clan, the Casalesi.
These contaminated food scandals associated with the Camorra can be dated back to 1999 to an investigation surrounding the suspicious death of two men near a dairy farm. The investigative efforts discovered that 16,000 tons of toxic products worth about 100 million euros were sold to Belgian, German, and French companies. These products included: Parma ham, mozzarella, and butter which contained more oil and beef fat than milk. This butter was purchased by many large French corporations: Lactalis (known for their Président brand), Entremont, Sodiaal (Yoplait and Candia brands), and Bel (Laughing Cow cheese). Despite that all the companies claimed to be victims, the French courts tried the CEOs of two French importation companies (Sodepral and Fléchard) for “organized fraud” and “fraud of essential items.”
Does the Camorra still have plans to expand its contaminated food industry? Maybe another diplomatic cable will say. Der Spiegal confirmed that WikiLeaks has 19 diplomatic cables from the Consul General in Naples, of which only 5 have been published.
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Crédits photo: Flickr CC Maria Keays avpiedra, avpiedra, wallyg
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