In the spring of 2006, what began as a reporter's investigation of Neapolitan organized crime made international news headlines. At great personal risk, the vigilante journalist, Roberto Saviano compiled the most thorough account to date of the Camorra and its chillingly significant role in the global economy. The result, a groundbreaking and utterly compelling book, was a major bestseller in Italy, and Saviano was granted police protection after his life was threatened by the organization, which had hitherto operated in relative obscurity.,Known by insiders as the System, the Camorra has an international reach and large stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs and toxic-waste disposal. It exerts a malign grip on cities and villages along the Neapolitan coast and is the deciding factor in why Campania has the highest murder rate in all of Europe and why cancer levels there have skyrocketed in recent years.
Saviano tells of huge cargoes of Chinese goods that are shipped to Naples and then quickly distributed unchecked across Europe. He investigates the Camorra's control of thousands of Chinese factories contracted to manufacture fashion goods, legally and illegally, for distribution around the world, and relates the chilling details of how the abusive handling of toxic waste is causing devastating pollution not only for Naples but also China and Somalia. In pursuit of his subject, Saviano worked as an assistant at a Chinese textile manufacturer, a waiter at a Camorra wedding, and on a construction site. A native of the region, he recalls seeing his first murder at the age of fourteen, and how his own father, a doctor, suffered a brutal beating for trying to aid an eighteen-year-old victim who had been left for dead in the street.
Gomorrah is a bold and engrossing piece of investigative writing and one heroic young man's impassioned story of a place under the rule of a murderous organization.