Priest reveals toxic dump sites

A Catholic priest has identified the location of tons of toxic waste buried by the Mafia after persuading informants to confide in him. In the 1980s and 1990s companies owned by the Neapolitan Camorra mob were paid by big business, mostly in northern Italy, to dispose of the industrial and toxic waste legally.

But in order to reap great profits the Mafia clan dumped hundreds of thousands of ton of dangerous waste illegally on landfill and farmland as well as in quarries and lakes around Naples.

Since then the cancer rates in the area have risen dramatically. One Mafia supergrass warned that all the inhabitants of the towns in that area “would die within 20 years”. Authorities are attempting a long overdue clean-up but don’t know the location of all the sites.

Fr Marco Ricci has identified a disused quarry on Mount Vesuvius where authorities have now found dozens of drums of asbestos and industrial waste.

The priest, who works with an environmental group, first became interested because he went to so many funerals of those affected by leukaemia and tumours, especially young children.

He said a “miracle” had happened. “We launched an appeal to people’s consciences. After this a person presented themselves as someone who had helped the Mafia with the operation. This person has the strength, the courage and the will to help,” Fr Ricci said. “We want the truth to come out, not to send someone to prison. We want to get the bad stuff out.”

Ten million tons of industrial waste were trucked into the area at night between 1991 and 2013, according to Legambiente, an environmental-protection association. Sometimes mountains of rubbish were set alight and billowed toxic fumes towards the towns of Nola, Acerra and Marigliano – an area north of Naples called the “Triangle of Death”. But the real danger is in the water table and aquifers feeding tomato and broccoli crops as well as vineyards and orchards, which have been poisoned with arsenic and heavy metals.

One and a half million people living in the Naples and Caserta provinces are affected.