The Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the Camorra in Naples and the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria – by far the most powerful, but also the least known – are Italy’s three main mafia groups. In an interview with RFI, French criminologist, economist and mafia specialist Clotilde Champeyrache paints a picture of misunderstood networks whose influence stretches far beyond Italy’s borders.
RFI: The mafia is so well-known that it has come to be used to refer to all forms of organised crime in Italy, and the rest of the world. Does its presence in the United States, its depiction in so many successful films and the extreme violence it unleashed – at least up until the murders of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992 – explain this notoriety? And do people really understand it?
