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Gomorrah and Mexican Cartel Violence: Is theItalian Camorra more violent than MexicanDrug Cartels?
 James Creechan, Ph.D. (Toronto, Canada)May 19, 2009
 Jean-François Gayraud includes the Camorra of Naples in his list of nineimportant organized crime groups of the world. He does so eventhough he acknowledges that the Camorra lacks the hierarchicalstructure characteristic of other mafia organizations included in hisbook.
“En la actualidad, la Camorra sigue siendo una entidad criminal atípica. Adiferencia de la Cosa Nostra, realiza un reclutamiento masivo y carece de un jerarquía clara y estable. En realidad, se asemeja más a una federación deconveniencia de bandas que aparecen y desaparecen que a una entidadhomogénea. El modelo sería más horizontal que piramidal. … No existe unaestructura permanente con functiones reguladoras, capaz de cortar ycontrolar las explosions de violencia.”
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102
Roberto Saviano’s runaway bestseller,
Gomorrah
, similarly describes ahorizontal criminal organization that facilitates the control of importsand exports through Naples and fosters profitable links with otherorganized crime groups in Europe and Asia. Alexander Stille’s extendedessay review of Gomorrah praises Saviano for calling attention to anorganized crime group that had frequently been trivialized as lessimportant than other well-known crime organizations:
“That it took the garbage crisis, the recent killings, and Saviano's book tomake the Camorra a major issue is part of the tragedy. As Saviano readilyacknowledges, most of the information in his book has been in the publicrecord for years; it could be found in court records and government reportsthat have been piling up like the trash that reemerged in Naples in the lastseveral weeks. Back in 1993, a report of the Italian parliament's anti-Mafiacommission issued a clear warning: ‘The Camorra is underestimated’."
Saviano’s description of Camorra clans is much more complete thanthe general overview found in Gayraud’s book. (pp. 98-104)Furthermore,
Gomorrah
also claims that the mafia of Campania is
more important 
than it is portrayed in
El G 9 de las Mafias del Mundo,
especially when Saviano describes its control of global commercemoving through Naples into the heart of Europe. Corruption andextortion tainting all commerce, as well as the dominance in politicspermeates all aspects of life, and leaves the reader to only imagine theenormous profit it generates for the Camorra coffers. Saviano put itthis way:
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In fact, the Camorra continues as an atypical criminal group. Unlike the Mafia, it undertakes awidescale recruitment and lacks a clear and stable hierarchy. In fact, in fact it most resemblesa convenient confederation of bands that appear and disappear than it does a homogeneousentity. The model is more horizontal than pyramidal. … A permanent structure with regulatoryfunctions capable of stopping short and controlling explosions of violence doesn’t exist.
Draft: © James Creechan Sept 10, 2009 page 1 of 13
 
“Everything that exists passes through here. Through the port of Naples. There’s not a product, fabric, piece of plastic, toy, hammer, shoe, screwdriver,bolt, video game, jacket, pair of pants, drill, or watch that doesn’t comethrough here. The port of Naples is an open wound. The end point for theinterminable voyage that merchandise makes…It’s a bizarre thing, hard tounderstand, yet merchandise possesses a rare magic: it manages both to beand not to be, to arrive without every reaching it’s destination, to cost thecustomer a great deal despite its poor quality, and to have little tax value inspite of being worth a huge amount.” (p.4-5)
Unlike the widely-known Mafias and ‘Ndranghetta, the structure of Camorra is less focused on hierarchy and less dependent on ritual, andinstead has been audaciously dedicated to a pure business modelgenerating unimaginable riches. Saviano distinguishes the differencebetween the Sicilians and the Campanians in one extended quote fromthe testimony of Camorra defector:
“One of the declarations about the Sicilian Mafiosi that shocked me most wasmade by the Casalesi
 pentito
Carmine Schiavone in a 2005 interview. Hetalked about the Cosa Nostra as if it were an organization enslaved topoliticians and, unlike the Caserta Camorristi, incapable of thinking in businessterms. According to Schiavone, the Mafia wanted to become a sort of antistate, but this was not a business issue. The state-antistate paradigmdoesn’t exist. All there is, is a territory where you do business— with, through,or without the state.
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” (190)
Saviano doesn’t dwell on macro and economic details of Camorracorruption, extortion and money-laundering, but prefers to relatepersonal narratives and vignettes from individuals sucked into anorganizational crime vortex fed by the business opportunitiesassociated with the port of Naples. In fact, this is the strength of hisbook because it provides a rarely seen portrait of daily life in regionscontrolled by organized crime. Many of his most memorable narrativesare graphic descriptions of violence during the many disputes and turf wars that flourished unchecked by institutional self-regulatingprocesses. One extended example is described in chapter 4,
theSecondigliano War,
where he relates the carnage that resulted whennon-hierarchical and competing clans of Campania attacked rivals overturf, jealousy and most frequently over profitable opportunties.Saviano carefully catalogues the casualties of those Camorra clan warswithin the Campania region over a quarter of a century :
“You don’t need to count the dead to understand the business of theCamorra. The dead are the least revealing element of the Camorra’s realpower, but they are the most visible trace, what sparks a gut reaction. I startcounting” 100 deaths in 1979, 140 in 1980, 110 in 1981, 264 in 1982, 204 in1983, 155 in 1984, 107 in 1986, 127 in 1987, 168 in 1988, 228 in 1989, 222 in1990, 223 in 1991, 160 in 1992, 120 in 1993, 115 in 1994, 148 in 1995, 147 in1996, 130 in 1997, 132 in 1998, 91 in 1999, 118 in 200, 80 in 2001, 63 in2002, 83 in 2003, 142 in 2004, 90 in 2005.Since I was born, 3600 deaths. The Camorra has killed more than theSicilian Mafia, more than the ‘Ndrangheta, more than the Russian Mafia, morethan the Albanian familes, more than the total number of deaths by the ETA in
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Casaliti refers to the powerful Camorra clan from Casal de Principe as does Caserta. A pentitois a “witness” or more appropriately someone who has “turned”.
Draft: © James Creechan Sept 10, 2009 page 2 of 13
 
Spain and the IRA in Ireland, more than the Red Brigades, the NAR, and all themassacres committed by the government in Italy. The Camorra has killed themost. Imagine a map of the world, the sort you see in newspapers such as
LeMonde Diplomatique
, which marks places of conflict around the globe with alittle flame, Kurdistan, Sudan, Kosovo, East Timor. Your eye is drawn to thesouth of Italy, to the flesh that piles up with every war connected to theCamorra, the Mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, the Sacra Corono Unita in Puglia, andthe Basilischi in Lucania. But there’s no little flame, no sign of conflict.
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”. (119-120)
“(G)ut reaction
” is an appropriate descriptor summarizing the reader’sreaction to that routine violence producing almost 140 assassinationseach and every year, and Roberto Saviano’s homicide counts aredeliberatley drawn out in a year to year count to emphasize his belief that the Camorra is more important than acknowledged. In fact,Saviano audaciously claims that Camorristas are
the most vicious
whenhe writes “
The Camorra has killed the most 
”. This assertion wasprominently displayed on the jacket cover which reports that authordescribes “
an organized crime network more powerful and violent thanthe Mafia
”, and this focus on violence was also emphasized in externalreviews: Rachel Donadio is an example, and wrote the following in amajor review for the New York Times.
Since 1979, 3,600 people have died at the hands of the Camorra — more thanhave been killed by the Sicilian Mafia, theIrish Republican Armyor the BasquegroupETA. Just last month, the pope made a special visit to Naples todenounce the “deplorable” violence in the region, the result of continuingdrug wars between rival clans. The dead do not leave this world peaceably. In“Gomorrah,” bodies are decapitated with circular saws, strangled slowly,drowned in mud, tossed down wells with live grenades, shot point blank neara statue of Padre Pio. A young priest who dared speak out is murdered andposthumously accused of cavorting with whores. Even after death, Savianowrites, “you are guilty until proven innocent.”
Is the Camorra the most violent organized crime group?
Saviano does not compare Camorra carnage with other data aboutorganized crime casualties in either Colombia or Mexico! Perhaps itwas simply a matter of not thinking to make this comparison, orperhaps he was blinded a the prevailing European view whichtraditionally excludes Latin American organizations
by default 
andparadigmatically assigns them to a less important category of action inthe global economy. Neither did Jean-François Gayraud include Mexicanor Colombian organizations among his nine most importanttransnational crime organizations since, in his interpretation, Mexicanand Colombian criminal groups do not meet the eight criteria heposited as necessary to label a group as a
transnational
organizedcrime unit:
control of a territory, capacity to dominate social order,
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It continues:
 This is the heart of Europe. This is where the majority of the country’s economy takes shape. It doesn’t muchmatter what the strategies for extraction are. What matters is that the cannon fodder remain mired in theoutskirts, trapped in tangles of cement and trash, in the black-market factories and cocaine warehouses. Andthat no one notice them, that it all seem(
sic
) like a war among gangs, a beggars’ war. Then you understand theway your friends who have emigrated, who have gone off to Milan or Padua, smile sarcastically at you,wondering whom you have become. They look at you from head to toe, try to size you up, figure out if you are a
chiachiello
or a
bbuono
. A failure or a Camorrista. You know which direction you chose at the fork in the road,which path you’re on, and you don’t see anything good at the end
Draft: © James Creechan Sept 10, 2009 page 3 of 13
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