Almost 2,000 years after the destruction of Pompeii, those living in the foothills of Mount Vesuvius face another disaster - but this apocalyptic threat is entirely man-made.

ENZO TOSTI, ACTIVIST (Translation):   Here we have the smouldering ground caused by self- combusting toxic waste buried underneath.

And this is only one of hundreds of sites. There are fierce that up to 20 million tonnes of toxic waste have been dumped illegally around Naples - an area now known as the 'Triangle of death'.

ENZO TOSTI (Translation):   Basically, in this area they dumped industrial waste, including chemical waste, and this is the proof. The ground is smouldering with unnatural fumes.

With poisonous fumes seeping from the soil, lethal contamination continues to spread through the maze of farms and aquifers surrounding Italy's third-largest city.

ENZO TOSTI (Translation):   This water is filled with poisons from the waste we’re standing on. This water you can see here feeds the wells that serve all these surrounding fields.

The effects have been devastating. Toxins have found their way into the food chain, triggering a massive upsurge in cancer rates – with children forming the majority of the victims. Last year, 8-year-old Francesco died from bone cancer. Doctors blame the disease on toxic waste. In the suburbs of Naples, Francesco suffered for more than two years as the cancer spread from his leg to his lungs.

ANTONELLA DE CRESCENZO (Translation):   We used to tell him we had to take care of his leg because of a pulled muscle. He was tired and that was it. But he knew nothing about the lung and never got to hear the word ‘chemotherapy’.” Now I’ll show you Francesco’s room. This is Francesco’s room. As you can see, he was fond of Cars, Dragonball. These are his toys. He used to sit on the floor.  I see him here. To me he’s here, He’s alive, he’s present. Always.

Eight months after Francesco's death, Antonella wants justice for her son.

ANTONELLA DE CRESCENZO (Translation):   For me, it is a matter of justice. They must pay. Those who did all this have to pay.

Francesco's parents are not alone in their search for answers.

FATHER PATRICIELLO (Translation):   Look at the faces of these women, they are just so… these women’s faces are stricken, destroyed by grief.

In his parish church, Father Patriciello shows me photo after photo of women and children, members of his church, who have become the face of a public campaign for justice.

FATHER PATRICIELLO (Translation):   These are some of the postcards we’ve printed to send to the president and to the Holy Father, Francis.  These mothers have become our brave mothers, telling people about their pain, and fighting against others apathy; they’re criticised for going public with their pain, but their motives are noble and we stand by them.

Cancer expert, Dr Antonio Marfella, says childhood cancers in this region of Italy are now double that of the rest of the country – a result he attributes to toxic waste contaminating local produce and finding its way from mother to child.

DR ANTONIO MARFELLA, ONCOLOGIST (Translation):   The carcinogenic, mutagenic damage in the majority of those cases pre-dates the pregnancy and affects mainly, but not solely, the mothers’ genetic material.

With the link between toxic waste and cancer being accepted by doctors, blame is now being directed at Italy's notorious Mafia. With stunning revelations about one of the mob's multibillion-dollar scams - it is the Mafia's control of Italy's waste disposal industry that has proven not only to be its most lucrative racket yet, but also its deadliest. Now, after decades of public officials looking the other way, Italy faces a toxic waste crisis that threatens of health of generations to come.

With a health crisis looming, the Mafia boss responsible for burying Italy's toxic waste has taken an extraordinary step - with a contract on his head, he has come out of hiding to publicly warn Italians of the dire threat they face.

CARMINE SCHIAVONE, FORMER MAFIA BOSS (Translation):   I was the boss of Cosa Nostra Campana for the Casalesi clan. So I was in charge... of a vast empire of investments. The clan pulled in around 10 billion lire a month

Carmine Schiavone was once one of the most powerful Mafia figures in Italy, when he and his mob friends began turning the Campania region into the garbage tip of Europe. He was dripping with money – but Schiavone says that eventually his conscience got the better of him.

CARMINE SCHIAVONE (Translation):   Because they’d say to me “You’re an old man of honour. We do it for the money.”  I’d say “You’re not men, you’re a bunch of arseholes. It’s not about being an old man of honour. It’s about people’s survival, unborn children who won’t be born because of you.”

Disgusted at what he was doing, he betrayed his clan and turned police informant on the Mafia's toxic dumps. But Schiavone was astonished that his key health warnings were never passed on to the people of Italy. What is even more curious is that the testimony he gave investigators has been declared a state secret - not to be released until 2050 - an attempt, according to the former Mafia boss, to conceal the government's involvement in the toxic trade.

CARMINE SCHIAVONE (Translation):   They’re the criminals, those people at high levels of politics and public service. Why don’t they show regret, and start talking once and for all?  Because they can’t and they don’t want to.

DR ANTONIO MARFELLA (Translation):   The fact that the State has been fully aware of what was going on since 1980 and that to this day, in 2013, we still have no data or a regular, efficient and robust of the epidemiological and toxicological effects on the land, I see as equivalent to a confession of complicity.

CARMINE SCHIAVONE (Translation):   In here are some of my files. These here, see?

During his time with the mob, Schiavone claims to have shelled out millions to corrupt officials - and the detailed lists he has kept contain the names of a throng of Italian judges, magistrates and politicians who were paid for their silence.

CARMINE SCHIAVONE (Translation):   I had to collect these in order to stay alive because if they kill me in an accident or with strychnine or poison my coffee, I’ve photocopied them all and given them to foreign journalists. And they’d kick up a huge fuss about it. They’d say “This is why you killed him.”

Dateline asked the Italian government for a detailed response to the claims raised in our report - but they declined our request to comment on any specific allegations. But those who have lost loved ones have plenty to say.

IMMA NASI (Translation):   Schiavone is talking, he’s making statements, he’s going on television and I should thank him? I can’t thank him because he’s still responsible for my daughter’s murder.

Four-year-old Mesia is another victim of Naples' toxic dumps.

IMMA NASI (Translation):   She was a healthy child, happy and carefree – a cheerful child. She liked to play and she had every right to play and live a carefree life. It is unacceptable that a parent should lose a child. I mean, accidents can happen but for a child who was born healthy to get cancer, of course it makes you angry.

CARMINE SCHIAVONE (Translation):   I’m not responsible because I tried to stop this destruction. But I also say that I’m morally responsible, because I was a Mafioso, and I regret that.

And Schiavone has one more revelation - the biggest of them all. Astonishingly, he claims that radioactive waste was systematically dumped into Italy's ocean - and it happened on an industrial scale.  Recently, claims have surfaced that over 100 ships and barges, laden with radioactive waste, were sunk along the Italian coast, including here, near the Isle of Capri.

CARMINE SCHIAVONE (Translation):  Those cases were contained inside a cement sarcophagus and those clapped-out old boats were regularly scuttled.

This video was shot by an environmental group investigating suspicious wrecks along the coast.

CARMINE SCHIAVONE (Translation):   Some of the ships that sank off the Tyrrhenian coast were even carrying tonnes and tonnes of nuclear red mercury. They’re still underwater, but with the wrong coordinates, because the captains who sank the ships would give the wrong coordinates and pocket the insurance.

These deeply troubling claims have also been declared a state secret. Though police investigations into toxic land dumps are now giving credence to the former Mafia boss's story.

GENERAL SERGIO COSTA, ENVIRONMENTAL POLICE (Translation):   This is the territory of Campania region which is managed by this control room… Ethics and morality simply don’t come into it. They’re not interested in them. They’re people without a soul. That’s the reality of it. These people have no soul.

General Sergio Costa is leading the largest investigation in Italian history. Police are scouring Campania's countryside for illegal dump sites and signs of contamination. We are hovering over one of the dumps uncovered by the police.

POLICE (Translation):   We are here, we have dug down to 18 metres here.  That is an asbestos dump.

With the entire region in the grip of panic about toxic dumps and contamination of the food chain, scientists are joining the police in a high-tech battle against the Mafia. Drones are also being deployed, using thermal imaging to identify dump sites and to track the toxins that flow from them.

CAPTAIN MARCO BIONDI, POLICE (Translation):   It’s used for various activities - not only for environmental investigations - flying over dumps, checking water flow and seeing where it leaks into canals – but also for criminal investigations.

GENERAL SERGIO COSTA (Translation):   Each one of us is feels a father or a mother of those kids who are not here anymore. We can feel it, we can share the suffering of these mums as much as is humanly possible.

For Father Patriciello's congregation, ravaged by the loss of its children, Sunday mass is an opportunity for healing.

FATHER PATRICIELLO (Translation):   Let us raise our hands to heaven and together with children all over the world, let us pray. Our father who art in heaven…

While he preaches peace, Father Patriciello is preparing his flock for a fight - to help them reclaim their land and their lives from the criminal clans that have terrorised the community for so long.

FATHER PATRICIELLO (Translation):   The Camorra has allowed the destruction of the land and its people. They’ve done us a huge disservice. We feel their stinking breath on our necks every day.  We don’t want to leave our land because of the rubbish. We don’t want to leave our land, Umberto says, we want to live on our land.

Father Patriciello believes that the tide may finally be turning against the Mafia. But so much has already been lost here - pristine land polluted, young lives destroyed.

FATHER PATRICIELLO (Translation):   Our forefathers left us this beautiful land, the world’s best and most fertile. Within 30 years we destroyed it and that hurts very deeply. God in his mercy may forgive the men responsible but history can never forgive us.

ANJALI RAO:   Although the Italian government didn't respond to the specific allegations in Nick's report, you can go to our website for more information they have provided about their investigation into pollution near Naples. That is at sbs.com.au/dateline. 

And who says crime doesn't pay - last week a leading Italian think-tank estimated that the Mafia earns a staggering $193 billion every year. That's more than the annual budget of the European Union.

Reporter
NICK LAZAREDES
 

Supervising Producer
MEGGIE PALMER

Fixers
LUCA PALAMARA
GIOVANNI NICOIS

Editor
WAYNE LOVE

Original Music Composed by VICKI HANSEN