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Environmentally FriendlyAll of Riso’s inks are vegetable oil-based. Riso ink dries through absorption into uncoated paper stock rather than through heavy chemical dryers or heat. Because of this, power consumption remains very low throughout the printing process.Each ink resides in its own portable drum that is moved into and out of the machine as needed. This eliminates ink waste and the need for toxic chemicals or washing stations between production runs. The Riso drum is simply removed from the machine, the stencil is discarded, and the drum is stored until the next use. Combine the above with the use of FSC certified and high post-consumer waste recycled papers, Riso is an environmentally conscious and sustainable print process.

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Environmentally FriendlyAll of Riso’s inks are vegetable oil-based. Riso ink dries through absorption into uncoated paper stock rather than through heavy chemical dryers or heat. Because of this, power consumption remains very low throughout the printing process.Each ink resides in its own portable drum that is moved into and out of the machine as needed. This eliminates ink waste and the need for toxic chemicals or washing stations between production runs. The Riso drum is simply removed from the machine, the stencil is discarded, and the drum is stored until the next use. Combine the above with the use of FSC certified and high post-consumer waste recycled papers, Riso is an environmentally conscious and sustainable print process.

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Ultimamente, mi è capitato di leggere l'ultimo dossier di Legambiente sul disastro ambientale della Campania. Una coppia di amici carissimi abita da quelle parti e il piacere di andarli a trovare è anche dovuto al fatto di condividere, a tavola, i prodotti della loro terra. Che tristezza e che ecocidio si sta consumando tra le province di Napoli e Caserta, in quella che è chiamata Terra dei fuochi. La mafia ha operato traffici illeciti di rifiuti che hanno portato con gli anni ad un disastro ambientale e a nuocere gravemente alla salute dell'uomo e ahimè dei nostri poveri bambini!

Intere popolazioni sottoposte ad un avvelenamento di massa; territori trasformati in fogne contenenti veleni a cielo aperto; tantissime discariche illegali piene di scorie tossiche. Quest'ultime vengono quotidianamente date alle fiamme per eliminare le tracce degli illeciti e fare spazio a nuovo "materiale". L'ARPAC (Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione Ambientale Campania) ha stabilito che sono stati più di 6.000 i roghi dei siti inquinati tra gennaio 2012 e agosto 2013. Si sta operando un omicidio alla luce del sole. Le sostanze inquinanti, infatti, si riversano nel suolo, nell'aria, nelle falde acquifere ed ecco che c'è un incremento di vari tipi di neoplasie tra la popolazione residente.

Negli ultimi 22 anni, sono stati scaricate circa 10 milioni di tonnellate di rifiuti tossici nella terra dei fuochi. E' dal 1994 che Legambiente redige rapporti/denuncia sulla "gestione" dei rifiuti da parte della mafia.

E' in corso una campagna End Ecocide in Europe per attivare una direttiva che preveda il delitto di ecocidio in Europa.

C'è anche una petizione che si può firmare, promossa da avvaz.org, per chiedere la bonifica di questi territori così martoriati.

C'è una mozione, sottoscritta dal Movimento 5 stelle, del 4 novembre 2013, per chiedere la bonifica di questi territori (88 comuni tra Napoli e Caserta). Tale mozione si basa sullo studio epidemiologico chiamato Sentieri, svoltosi tra il 2007 e il 2010, a cura del Ministero della Salute.

Dal 19 novembre al 6 dicembre 2013 si è svolto il progetto culturale Politicamente Scorretto 2013. Durante tale manifestazione, è sta proiettata una video-inchiesta "La Terra dei fuochi", di Domenico Iannaccone e Luca Cambi, che ha vinto il premio Coop ambiente 2013. E' stato anche inserito nel programma i Dieci Comandamenti, andato in onda su Rai3: l'argomento è stato al centro della puntata relativa al comandamento "non commettere atti impuri". Il video è veramente toccante e la visione è per stomaci forti. E' però anche ricco di storie di persone che danno speranza a questa Italia, che combattono in prima persona questa situazione, che non si arrendono al destino della Campania. C'è la storia di un ex spacciatore di droga, ora direttore di una'associazione no profit, Un'infanzia da vivere, che ha scelto il Parco di Caivano come punto di aggregazione e di sensibilizzazione per i ragazzi e gli abitanti del quartiere.

C'è la storia di un marito e una moglie che, insieme, hanno deciso di creare un gruppo su facebook, chiamato Vittime del triangolo della morte. In tale spazio si possono caricare le foto delle persone colpite da cancro che vivono in quelle terre, per rendere pubblica questa situazione, visto che lo stato ancora non ha pubblicato i dati del registro sui tumori.

Eh si, perché ancora non si è arrivati a prendere una decisione in merito alla relazione tra l'esponenziale tasso di mortalità per cancro e l'inquinamento ambientale che contraddistingue ormai quelle zone. Le sostanze tossiche presenti nelle discariche abusive sono responsabili di svariate malattie che vanno dalla sclerosi, al lupus, ai tumori più variegati (danni irreversibili). Ma teniamo presente che sono anche colpevoli della creazione di mutazioni genetiche per le future generazioni, che portano come conseguenza la nascita di bambini ammalati o predisposti a malattie tremende.

Insomma, forse vale la pena vederselo.

Una notizia positiva si chiama Campania Terra dei Cuochi. Che cos'è? E' un'iniziativa lanciata da Legambiente insieme al comune di Pollica e all'Istituto MedEatResearch dell'Università Suor Orsola Benincasa di Napoli, per rilanciare questa bellissima regione dove vengono prodotti 25 Dop e Igp certificati (es. pizza napoletana, mozzarella di bufala, limoni di sorrento, ecc) e 15 vini Doc e Docg (es. Vesuvio doc). Si tratta, in sostanza, della possibilità di inviare delle ricette che prevedano l'utilizzo di prodotti campani, all'indirizzo ricette@legambiente.campania.it . Le ricette pervenute saranno pubblicate sul sito di Legambiente e saranno le protagoniste di momenti di incontro e degustazione per promuovere i sapori e le eccellenze della Campania. Il primo testimonial di quest'iniziativa è stato le chef pluristellato Alfonso Iaccarino del ristorante Don Alfonso 1890 di Sant'Agata sui due Golfi, che ha ideato per l'occasione un Vesuvio di rigatoni!

Salvare l'agricoltura campana è un dovere per il nostro Paese. A essere a rischio è solo il 5% dell'intera superficie regionale. Non facciamo vincere la mafia ancora una volta!

Per approfondire:

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Mangiare e sopravvivere nella terra dei fuochi - Imperial Bulldog

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Ultimamente, mi è capitato di leggere l'ultimo dossier di Legambiente sul disastro ambientale della Campania. Una coppia di amici carissimi abita da quelle parti e il piacere di andarli a trovare è anche dovuto al fatto di condividere, a tavola, i prodotti della loro terra.

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May 17, 2018 · MAMMA VITA MIA is a film based on the idea of the Neapolitan tattoo artist Braian ...
Duration: 1:56
Posted: May 17, 2018

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Jun 1, 2018 — tattoolifemagazine “Mamma vita mia” is a documentary film on one of the most influential social phenomena of the past 50 years: the art of.

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often, violent motives would be intertwined with religious symbolism, such as rosaries, or flaming hearts adorned with a crown of thorns. These symbols were supposed to help their owners get away with the violent crimes the other imagery identified him as taking part in. The Camorra did not much separate the sacred and the profane… Often there would also be skulls and other symbols relating to an awareness of mortality, or rather, the desire to cheat death for as long as possible. 

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often, violent motives would be intertwined with religious symbolism, such as rosaries, or flaming hearts adorned with a crown of thorns. These symbols were supposed to help their owners get away with the violent crimes the other imagery identified him as taking part in. The Camorra did not much separate the sacred and the profane… Often there would also be skulls and other symbols relating to an awareness of mortality, or rather, the desire to cheat death for as long as possible. 

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It is said never to judge a book by its cover. However, when it comes to the Camorra mobsters of Naples, you could probably judge them by the markings on their skin.

The tattooed syndicate of Naples

Since modern times, Naples has always been one of the heaviest tattooed cities in the world. Its infamous mafia, the Camorra, is one of the oldest and bloodiest criminal organisations in Italy, dating back to the 17th century. The relationship between body art and the mafia go back to the early 19th century. Those working for the organised criminal syndicate would get their bodies permanently adorned with set motives. Both as a way of proving their lifelong loyalty, but also to indicate what function they filled, or where in the hierarchy of the organisation the belonged.

The ace of clubs was the motive used by Mafia underbosses to show that they were thugs who were good at... working with their hands. More sinister individuals would have guns inked somewhere on their bodies. This would indicate that they had taken one, or several, lives using this violent means. A knife would signify a lifelong oath in the form of a vendetta, a blood feud.

More subtle symbols, such as a small cross on a finger, would be used to signify hierarchical position within the organisation. Instant recognition, no calling card or Googling necessary. Eyes on the shoulders were also common as a means of saying that the mafia was always watching, even when you thought it couldn't see.

Skin-deep absolution

Often, violent motives would be intertwined with religious symbolism, such as rosaries, or flaming hearts adorned with a crown of thorns. These symbols were supposed to help their owners get away with the violent crimes the other imagery identified him as taking part in. The Camorra did not much separate the sacred and the profane... Often there would also be skulls and other symbols relating to an awareness of mortality, or rather, the desire to cheat death for as long as possible.

Family and Bodo the Boss

During a famous feud in the Neapolitan quartiere of Scampia 2004-2005, tattoos were used as a means of appeal. Members of the warring gangs of the Di Lauro clan and those who called themselves the 'secessionists' would have 'Do not touch my family' written on their forearms. A request to spare the loved ones of the mobsters, at a time when enemies would stop at nothing to get to each other.

Recently, the police have arrested several young members from a clan in a suburb called Ponticelli. They have become known as 'the tattooed ones' because of all having had the name of their boss, Bodo, inked on their forearms and backs. Some of them have also added the phrase 'Respect, loyalty, honour.'

Mother Life of Mine

The makers of a documentary called ' Mamma Vita Mia ' gained exclusive access into the homes and the tattooed histories of Camorra former bosses. For the first time the stories of their ink was told by the canvases themselves. The film premiered at the London Tattoo Convention in 2018, and takes its name from the most widespread tattoo of all, 'M.V.M.' (translates to 'Mother Life of Mine'). It goes on to show the evolution of tattooing in the city, and the shifting relationship of its youth to the art form. In spite of its newfound mainstream popularity, maybe no one is rushing to get an ace of clubs or a knife inked as a motive just yet...

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It is said never to judge a book by its cover. However, when it comes to the Camorra mobsters of Naples, you could probably judge them by the markings on their skin. The tattooed syndicate of Naples Since modern times, Naples has always been one of the heaviest tattooed cities in the world.

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I coordinate a project for the economy of the common good which is called Terra e a capo and brings together farmers, activists in the Land of Fires and ecologists. Among the women who buy vegetables here, an associative nucleus has been born that deals with intimate reconnection with nature, food sovereignty and ecofeminism. 

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I coordinate a project for the economy of the common good which is called Terra e a capo and brings together farmers, activists in the Land of Fires and ecologists. Among the women who buy vegetables here, an associative nucleus has been born that deals with intimate reconnection with nature, food sovereignty and ecofeminism. 

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Learning on Screen - The British Universities and Colleges Film and Video Council

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Maurizio Patriciello, the priest against the Italian mafia: “They put a bomb on me in front of the parish” - Italy News

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Maurizio Patriciello is the parish priest of San Paolo Apostol de Parque Verde, in Caivano, in the province of Naples. He is a symbol of resistance against corruption and fear in southern Italy. He is threatened by the Camorra, which is the mafia of the Campania region, especially strong in Naples a…

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It has invaded everywhere, penetrating even the soil. The waste has invaded our lives and entered our very bodies.

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It has invaded everywhere, penetrating even the soil. The waste has invaded our lives and entered our very bodies.

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In the media narrative, the Land of Fires is synonymous with illegal dumping and clandestine burning of waste which, day after day, poison the population. A reality that undoubtedly exists. But there are also those who, day after day, roll up their sleeves and try to demonstrate that a different future is possible. This is the case of Miriam Corongiu , a longtime activist who, together with her husband Vincenzo Marciano , gave birth to the Convivial Garden . Four hectares, cultivated following the principles of agroecology , which soon became the meeting point of a small community determined to live more consciously.

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©Miriam Corongiu

Nella narrazione mediatica, la Terra dei fuochi è sinonimo di discariche abusive e roghi clandestini di rifiuti che, giorno dopo giorno, avvelenano la popolazione. Una realtà che esiste, indubbiamente. Ma esiste anche chi, giorno dopo giorno, si rimbocca le maniche e prova a dimostrare che un futuro diverso è possibile. È il caso di Miriam Corongiu, attivista di lunga data che, insieme al marito Vincenzo Marciano, ha dato vita all' Orto conviviale. Quattro ettari, coltivati seguendo i princìpi dell' agroecologia, che ben presto sono divenuti il punto d'incontro di una piccola comunità determinata a vivere in modo più consapevole.

Come descriveresti in poche parole l'Orto conviviale?

L'Orto conviviale innanzitutto è una piccola azienda agricola. Già questa definizione è importante perché la riduzione della scala è un antidoto all'economia della distruzione. La dimensione piccola è indispensabile per la cura della terra e delle persone che vengono qui: le conosciamo una a una, conosciamo le loro abitudini alimentari e le loro storie personali.

Puntiamo tutto sulla familiarità e sulla convivialità in quanto risposta alla "mega macchina infernale dell'industrializzazione", per riprendere le parole di Ivan Illich. Stare insieme, condividendo il cibo, lo spazio, l'aria e la terra di cui siamo solo custodi, significa cercare una risposta alle difficoltà che viviamo. Una risposta che spesso non troviamo nelle città, abbandonate all'individualismo, al solipsismo e alla solitudine.

Coltiviamo la biodiversità nei nostri quattro ettari di terreno ai piedi del monte Somma, misti a frutteto (certificato biologico) e orto. Siamo in Terra dei fuochi e lo rivendichiamo con orgoglio. È una delle tante terre con criticità ambientali in Italia e ha un grande risalto pubblico anche perché, come attivisti, siamo stati pronti a denunciare lo sfacelo che vivevamo. Lo facciamo tuttora, nonostante le difficoltà.

Fare agroecologia in Terra dei fuochi è un atto di coraggio perché le piccole produzioni di qualità non sono garantite dalle istituzioni a livello normativo, né hanno respiro da un punto di vista culturale. Però è necessario, perché l'agroecologia è un insieme di tecniche che servono proprio per la rigenerazione delle acque, della terra e dell'aria. È anche un approccio rigenerativo della società: vogliamo che le persone stiano insieme intorno alla terra.

Credit foto
©Miriam Corongiu

Puoi citare alcuni dei vostri progetti che coinvolgono la comunità?

Noi lavoriamo molto sul senso di comunità. Nella primavera del 2020, quando c'è stato il fulcro del Covid-19, abbiamo donato 320 mascherine all'ospedale San Giovanni Bosco di Napoli. L'abbiamo fatto creando un gruppo e prendendo tutte le decisioni insieme.

Un altro tema a cui teniamo molto è quello dei migranti, avvalendoci di lavoratori e lavoratrici della terra che vengono dall'estero. Anche se siamo una piccola aziende agricola e non abbiamo grossi volumi, cerchiamo di affrontare il tema del caporalato con progetti etici che coinvolgono le persone. A Napoli c'è la tradizione del caffè sospeso, noi abbiamo lanciato la " passata sospesa": questa passata d'eccellenza, fatta con il pomodorino del Piennolo vesuviano, è stata donata all'associazione Ya Basta.

Facciamo parte del progetto " La buona terra - dalle passate al futuro", che riunisce gli agricoltori campani e li mette in contatto con gli acquirenti dei Gas (Gruppi di acquisto solidale), in collaborazione con il Distretto di economia solidale della Brianza e con l'organizzazione nazionale Co-Energia. Attraverso il prezzo trasparente, agricoltori e acquirenti discutono insieme fino a stabilire un prezzo coerente con le esigenze reciproche. Visto che noi piccoli agricoltori non potremo mai essere competitivi con le grandi realtà e nemmeno la Pac (Politica agricola comune) ci supporta, queste iniziative ci permettono di fare fronte alle difficoltà.

Io coordino un progetto di economia del bene comune che si chiama Terra e a capo e riunisce agricoltori, attivisti in Terra dei fuochi ed ecologisti. Tra le donne che comprano qui le verdure è nato un nucleo associativo che si occupa di riconnessione intima con la natura, sovranità alimentare ed ecofemminismo.

Credit foto
©Miriam Corongiu

L'Orto conviviale è un progetto abbastanza giovane. Quando ti sei avvicinata all'agricoltura?

L'Orto conviviale compie cinque anni a maggio 2022. In realtà questa è la scelta della mia famiglia, composta da me, mio marito e mia figlia che ha 13 anni. Circa cinque anni fa io sono stata licenziata e poi mio marito ha lasciato il lavoro perché le condizioni erano diventate disumane, quindi abbiamo tentato di essere felici. Mio marito è geologo, il che significa che abbiamo anche competenze scientifiche. Prima ancora di partire con l'Orto conviviale, abbiamo fatto analizzare le acque e abbiamo riscontrato che erano ottime.

Il modello dell'Orto conviviale è sostenibile anche a livello economico?

L'Orto conviviale in cinque anni ha dato una dimostrazione di grandissima sostenibilità anche dal punto di vista economico. Abbiamo tagliato con la grande distribuzione organizzata e questo ci ha salvato, perché non potevamo sopportare quei prezzi da fame. Ci sono rimaste le famiglie. Abbiamo scelto un'agricoltura etica e per questo faticosa: il nostro trattore ha quarant'anni, lavoriamo di zappa.

Seguiamo l'approccio dell' agricoltura multifunzionale, per cui un'azienda agricola deve offrire una serie di servizi alla sua comunità di riferimento. Proprio in virtù di questi servizi, degli eventi e dei progetti, e grazie all'apertura bisettimanale che ci consente di abbattere gli sprechi, l'Orto conviviale è più che sostenibile anche economicamente.

Tra il 2000 e il 2010 nella regione Campania è fallito il 32,4% delle piccole e medie aziende agricole. Noi invece ci rafforziamo sempre di più e ne siamo orgogliosi, anche perché nella nostra vita potevamo fare tutt'altro. Abbiamo lasciato il certo per l'incerto; e l'agricoltura è fortemente incerta, soprattutto in tempi di cambiamenti climatici. Nella terra abbiamo ritrovato la nostra dimensione naturale. Seguire i ritmi della natura e delle stagioni non ha prezzo, è qualcosa che si ripercuote positivamente sulla nostra serenità e ci colloca in modo diverso nel mondo. In più c'è l'impegno sociale, perché ho capito subito di non potermi fermare al mio orticello.

La sostenibilità economica è al centro dei nostri progetti. Per diffondere un'agricoltura etica e su piccola scala, è necessario che i giovani capiscano di poterci vivere. So che l'Orto conviviale è una piccola realtà ma funziona molto bene, tant'è che molti ragazzi ne sono incuriositi e ci chiedono come abbiamo fatto. Noi possiamo dare un'ispirazione, dopodiché ciascuno deve trovare la sua modalità: la terrà ti dà la libertà di fare impresa seguendo la tua identità. L'economia del bene comune dice che le nostre scelte hanno ricadute sul territorio, il profitto è soltanto un mezzo.

Credit foto
©Miriam Corongiu

Come attivista, ti sei dedicata per anni alla Terra dei fuochi. La grande visibilità mediatica ottenuta da questa emergenza ambientale ha cambiato qualcosa?

Non solo in Campania, ma anche in altre regioni, le istituzioni hanno la tendenza a negare l'esistenza di un problema, anche per la loro incapacità di risolverlo. La Terra dei fuochi conta due milioni di abitanti in una piana che supera i mille chilometri quadrati: i problemi sono tantissimi ed estremamente ramificati.

Magari fosse solo colpa della gente che abbandona i rifiuti per strada! Certo, c'è anche una quota di inciviltà, ma il più è rappresentato dai rifiuti industriali abbandonati. Stamattina c'è stato un altro incendio, il terzo in tre settimane, con colonne di fumo che si vedevano a chilometri di distanza. Questo succede perché a monte c'è un problema di gestione degli impianti, di sicurezza e di mancanza di controlli.

Come affrontare l'interramento dei rifiuti tossici, l'inciviltà, lo smaltimento illegale, gli incendi, l'inquinamento delle acque? Le istituzioni non mettono mano a questo mostro, spesso perché non vogliono farlo. L'ecomafia esiste con la complicità delle istituzioni, come dimostrano tantissime inchieste. Non c'è la volontà politica di risolvere i problemi della Terra dei fuochi, che è un'ordinaria emergenza da vent'anni.

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L'Orto conviviale nella Terra dei fuochi - Cure-Naturali.it

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Credit foto©Miriam Corongiu Nella narrazione mediatica, la Terra dei fuochi è sinonimo di discariche abusive e roghi clandestini di rifiuti che, giorno dopo giorno, avvelenano la popolazione. Una realtà che esiste, indubbiamente. Ma esiste anche chi, giorno dopo giorno, si rimbocca le maniche e prova a dimostrare che un futuro diverso è possibile.

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The thing about being murdered, it usually comes as a surprise. Even in Naples, where the criminal clans known collectively as the Camorra are again struggling violently for control of the streets, no victim wakes up expecting on that given day to die. He shaves carefully, dresses in his beloved clothes, slips on an expensive watch, and maybe squeezes his wife before heading out to meet with his friends. If he suspected his fate, he might at least kiss his wife good-bye. But the neighborhood has been home for generations to everyone he knows who counts. He deals there in extortion, protection, narcotics, and counterfeit goods. He abides by alternative rules. For this he is respected. He rarely carries a gun. His experience until now has been that murder happens only to others. Then someone comes along and kills him.

It is a strangely final event. There may be a moment of recognition at the end, but by then the man can no longer stay alive. Recently, in a northern district called Secondigliano, it was obvious that the victim knew his fate for about seven seconds before he died. Secondigliano is an old farming town that has been swallowed by the city. It has evolved into one of Europe's largest open-air drug markets and a working-class stronghold for the Camorra. The victim was a mid-ranking member of one of its clans involved in a typically convoluted struggle, and not known to the police before. He was in his mid-30s and beginning to bald. He was immaculately dressed and groomed. As was his habit, he had come to a small street-front gambling shop to play a bit of one-armed bandit. Surveillance cameras there captured his demise. It was broad daylight. As a cautionary measure he had placed three guards outside, one of whom was burly, but none of whom was armed. The gambling shop was narrow and had space for only six machines against one wall. In the back was a closed door. The victim was alone in the room. He sat on a stool to gamble.

A street camera caught the killers' arrival. There were two of them. They pulled up fast on a motor scooter, both in full-face helmets with the visors down. From the certainty of their movements, they seemed sure that the victim was inside. It is not known who had informed them. The clerk who normally tended to the shop was nowhere in sight. As soon as the scooter came to a stop, the man on the back hopped off and, with a 9-mm. pistol in hand, strode purposefully toward the front door. The guards fled before him. Two of them, including the burly one, tumbled into the room to raise the alarm. The camera inside showed them bursting in, followed closely by the gunman-a slender figure looking bug-like in his full-face armor. The victim reacted immediately. He leapt from his stool, dashed to the back door, and tugged on it, only to find that it was locked. His heart must have been racing. He turned and tried to escape through the front. This took him to within point-blank range of the gunman, who had stopped about halfway into the room. With two pistol kicks, the gunman shot him in the back as he passed. The victim fell facedown. The gunman took two steps forward, leaned over, and finished him with a single shot to the head.

But the gunman was not cool about the killing. In his rush to get away, he tripped over a stool and crashed to the floor, catching himself with his forearms and rolling as he rose. The gyration left him facing back toward the room just as the burly guard, in his own hurry to escape, made the mistake of barging in his direction. The gunman fired twice into the guard's chest. The guard fell backward and lay stretched for a while, repetitively moving his hands to his chest until he lowered his hands and died. By then the gunman had already climbed onto the motor scooter behind his accomplice outside, and the two had raced away. The scooter did not have legible license plates. Shortly afterward a detective told me that the police had not been able to identify the assailants, but he assured me that the Camorra already had. So take the long view, he said: one way or another, justice will probably be done. Furthermore, even the state will eventually figure things out if only because in Naples, he said, murder is a language that the police can understand. The dead may talk, he implied, more fully than the living can.

An Understanding

Silence is a Neapolitan birthright. The city has such a culture of it that some years ago, when an innocent girl was killed in a Camorra crossfire, many of the witnesses who had initially identified the shooters to the police recanted their statements during the trial that ensued. In frustration, the investigating judge lost his calm and began berating the witnesses, as if here in the courtroom he had come face-to-face with the Camorra itself. He had not. He had come face-to-face with ordinary Neapolitans. You cannot really berate the Camorra. If you try, you will find yourself meeting blank stares.

The Camorra is not an organization like the Mafia that can be separated from society, disciplined in court, or even quite defined. It is an amorphous grouping in Naples and its hinterlands of more than 100 autonomous clans and perhaps 10,000 immediate associates, along with a much larger population of dependents, clients, and friends. It is an understanding, a way of justice, a means of creating wealth and spreading it around. It has been a part of life in Naples for centuries-far longer than the fragile construct called Italy has even existed. At its strongest it has grown in recent years into a complete parallel world and, in many people's minds, an alternative to the Italian government, whatever that term may mean. Neapolitans call it "the system" with resignation and pride. The Camorra offers them work, lends them money, protects them from the government, and even suppresses street crime. The problem is that periodically the Camorra also tries to tear itself apart, and when that happens, ordinary Neapolitans need to duck.

Secondigliano is well practiced at this. It currently has one of the highest murder rates in Western Europe. Probably one of the highest shooting rates, too. I have a friend from there who is an architect. Her father is a retired municipal-bus driver. He owns a station wagon that he uses to transport another daughter, who requires a wheelchair. One day not long ago two men stole the station wagon, then called the family's apartment and demanded 2,000 euros in cash for the return of the car. The thieves were cheap Camorra punks, the lowest sort of clan associates. My friend was outraged, but her father paid what he could of the ransom. He did this on a street, with the cash in an envelope, while his daughter circled around trying to take pictures with her cell phone. None of the pictures worked out. My friend accused her father of complicity with the system. He answered that he simply could not afford to buy another car. Yes, there was a time when no punk from Secondigliano would have dared to steal the car of a local man with a crippled child-because the Camorra itself would have intervened. But he did not feel sorry for himself. He is a realist. Fighting broke out in the district in 2004, and it has continued sporadically ever since, weakening the clans to the point where they can no longer control their own. The lowest of them are idiots who know only how to shoot. And so what? You learn to duck. In his entire life only once has he had to buy back his car. Certainly the government of Italy has cost him more in taxes.

He was raised in Secondigliano. He knows Naples well. For 30 years he shuttled its residents around. To drive a bus was to work the streets. All sorts of people climbed on and off. He watched over them when they were in his charge. He did not isolate himself from Naples as a northerner might have. He opened his heart to get the job done. Naples is filthy. Naples is wild. Naples is the greatest city of all. To hell with Rome and Milan, and their soccer teams too. When Napoli plays, the whole world stops. When it plays at home, the supporters of the opposing teams hardly dare to show up. Forza Napoli! Its opponents are bastards born to whores. At the stadium they huddle behind protective caging against the debris and the fireworks thrown at them. This is beautiful to behold. Naples is busy. Naples is poor. Naples has a bus route called R5, which my friend's father sometimes drove. It carries addicts and pickpockets in a standing-room crush of ordinary citizens, and runs from the train station deep into the parallel world of the Camorra-skirting the narrow streets of the old city center, where the police don't go, grinding uphill past the airport, with all of its associated rackets, stopping by a popular drug market in an alley of Secondigliano, and ending in a slum called Scampia, a district of dispersed apartment blocks where the Camorra holds sway and someone has spray-painted a declaration in giant graffiti on a building's side. mala via masta ne, it reads, or, roughly, Crime Rules the Way.

The Piazzas

Scampia is what poverty looks like when Corbusierian city planners try to impose their utopias on people's lives. The sidewalks are broad but empty. The parks are fenced off for safety. There are almost no stores or cafés. Many of the residences are falling prematurely into ruin, and some, still inhabited, have been gutted by fire. A Catholic billboard reads, if you believe in scampia, you will find a sea of love. In the common space of one iconic building, a broken pipe has been gushing municipal water into the gutters for five years straight. Nearby there are several gloomy apartment blocks that enclose defensible courtyards and have fortified stairwells that can be controlled from within. These are the drug bazaars-known as piazzas-over which Neapolitans have spilled so much blood. They are among the more lucrative retail operations in the world-outlets for low-grade heroin and cocaine that function openly but remain largely beyond the reach of the state. The logistical details vary, depending on location and customer base, but the largest operations run day and night, and deploy dozens of lookouts to cover the approaches-some sitting astride motor scooters on the streets, some watching the driveways and parking areas from upper-floor windows, others standing in groups at the allowed entry points to the courtyards and buildings. Again, there are variations, but the ideal is to seal off the outer perimeter of the complex by augmenting the existing window bars and steel doors with concertina wire and heavy bolts, and then to cut a small portal in the ground-floor wall of a stairwell-whether to the courtyard or to the back of the complex-through which cash and narcotics can be safely exchanged.

These arrangements cannot stop the police from entering, but they practically guarantee that no sellers will be found in possession of weapons or drugs-and this in turn makes raids seem pointless. As for the residents of the complexes, they are captives to the extent that they have to avoid the active stairwells and must leave and return through Camorra checkpoints that may occasionally be closed. In any case, they themselves are often involved, whether as lookouts, needle vendors, or the recipients of the Camorra's aid. More fundamentally, the Camorra is simply a part of life. One afternoon I walked with a police detective-armed, gritty, unshaven, and in sweatshirt and jeans-past a group of Camorra soldiers, across a courtyard, and through an open steel door into a stairwell. A couple of chairs stood by a portal cut into a wall. The door was equipped with a massive locking bolt which the detective demonstrated by sliding it into place. Soon afterward a woman appeared from upstairs, accompanied by a young girl. Without a word they walked past us to the door, which the mother unbolted to go outside. The girl said, "But, Mama, don't we have to wait for the men to give us permission?" The woman answered, "No, these are the police." Her tone was patient, as if she were conveying the most basic facts to her child. "This is what cops look like," she seemed to mean. And also, "In our world, angel, they don't count for much."

On the backside of the building a line of customers snaked up an outside flight of stairs and along a second-floor passageway to a hole in a door where heroin was being sold. They were Italians, all of them, some furtive, most not. If only because the prisons would be overwhelmed, the personal possession of narcotics in Italy is not significantly criminalized. The heroin was going for eight euros a dose-hardly more than a pack of cigarettes, and one-fourth the price in Milan. A few customers had come all the way from Florence for the bargain. Men, women, young, old. Some had arrived on the R5 bus. Some could not wait to get high before heading home. Dozens of addicts milled around in a rubbish-strewn field that was littered with needles, near a patch of pavement stained with what appeared to be dried blood. They sat on concrete walls or in the dirt, exposing their arms or feet and preparing their veins with loving care, before injecting themselves with their chemical bliss. Afterward they sat nodding, or stood against the cold by a bonfire, or wandered aimlessly through the smoke and refuse. We walked among them. They were largely indifferent to our presence, but one man approached. The detective asked him, "Why do you live this way?"

The man said, "Drugs like everyone, and everyone likes drugs."

The detective said, "Me, I do not like drugs. I like women."

The man said, "Yes, but the difference is that drugs won't betray you."

Yes, but the drugs were hollowing him out inside. And all around him the Camorra kept falling out and fighting. And love cannot be as dangerous as that.

Life Lessons

Betrayal? The Camorra murders especially when it is weak. The killing in Scampia and Secondigliano has been going on for so long that some prosecutors almost regret their previous triumphs. In memory there is a golden era when the Camorra was strong. The boss then was a recluse named Paolo Di Lauro, a presence rarely seen, who is now in prison effectively for life and stands as one of the greatest Camorristi of all time. Little is known of his early years except that he was born in Secondigliano in 1953, was orphaned young, and was adopted by a family of modest means that had a house near the center of the district. The mother was a housewife, the father a simple laborer. They were deep Neapolitans who spoke a dialect nearly unintelligible elsewhere in Italy. Di Lauro attended a few years of primary school before dropping out and getting to work, first as an assistant for a local shopkeeper. By his late teens he had moved to the industrial zones of far-off Northern Italy, where he worked door-to-door selling underwear and bedsheets to migrant factory workers from the South. In local parlance such merchants are known as magliari, a word that can also mean cheaters. There is no evidence that Di Lauro cheated anyone at the time, but his subsequent history indicates that he might not have hesitated if given the chance. He was quiet and unusually ambitious. In the North he made a bit of money and developed a taste for card games and gambling. It turned out that he was mathematically inclined. Back in Secondigliano he married a local girl who in 1973 bore him the first of 11 children-all of them sons. His wife was very Catholic, as was he. They loved each other very much.

He was not a fighter. It was his coolness when gambling that brought him to the attention of the clan that controlled Secondigliano at the time. The head of the clan was a flamboyant Camorrista named Aniello La Monica, who had a clothing store named Python, after his preferred weapon, a heavy .357 Magnum revolver. La Monica was an aggressive killer-responsible for the deaths of many men, including, it is said, one by hands-on decapitation-but he was strangely shy about the drug trade, preferring to stick to the traditional pursuits of dealing in black-market cigarettes, meddling in public construction, and protecting the neighborhood shopkeepers from crime. Around 1975 he engaged Di Lauro to do the clan's books. The position gave Di Lauro a privileged view of the business and convinced him after several years-despite the continuing reluctance of La Monica-that far greater profits could be made in the as yet unexploited local trade in heroin and cocaine. This became all the more evident after the great Neapolitan earthquake of 1980, which drove thousands of people from their ruined center-city slums and swelled the Scampia public-housing projects with the poor and dispossessed.

In the years that followed, billions of dollars of reconstruction funds infused cash into every level of Neapolitan society. Di Lauro stuck to the shadows. He spoke little. He listened and observed. He believed that rational people can resolve their professional disputes through compromise and negotiation, and that they should kill only as a last resort. He was more self-disciplined, however, than he was gentle. La Monica, who is said to have been a good judge of men, came to fear that Di Lauro was the most ruthless man of all. For his part, Di Lauro concluded that La Monica had become an impediment to business, and in 1982 he tried to remove him from power by informing key clan members, as the bookkeeper, that La Monica had been taking more than his fair share of the proceeds. When La Monica learned of Di Lauro's treachery, he hired two killers from a nearby town to hunt Di Lauro down. They arrived by motor scooter, found Di Lauro at a street market, shot at him, missed, and chased him around until he escaped.

Afterward there was no room left for compromise, and people within the clan faced the prospect of having to choose between the two men. Any uncertainty they felt did not last for long. Di Lauro paid an associate to lure La Monica out of his house by offering to show him stolen diamonds, and La Monica, much as he recognized the risk, walked into the trap so he would not seem to be cowering at home. Once on the street he found that the associate had disappeared. Before he could retreat into his house, Di Lauro and three others came speeding around a corner in a Fiat and smashed into him. The impact did not knock him down. The damage to the Fiat is unknown. Di Lauro and his accomplices got out of the car and killed La Monica with pistol shots. La Monica was barely 40 years old. Di Lauro was not yet 30. It is rumored that he was a poor marksman. On the advice of his friends, he swore never again to handle a gun. It seems that he never did, directly, from then on.

On the day of La Monica's funeral, all of Secondigliano mourned, and many shopkeepers closed their doors in respect. Di Lauro solemnly attended the burial, then faded again into the shadows. He was so averse to standing out that the police knew nothing about him for years. They had no idea who had murdered La Monica, because no one talked. Soon after the killing, the leaders of an important clan in the center of the city asked for a meeting, because they too could not decipher the event. Di Lauro attended the meeting with several of his men and explained that they wanted to do business in friendship and peace. This was true, at least for Di Lauro himself. As luck would have it, the police picked that meeting to raid. They detained Di Lauro but then released him without questioning, assuming he was a minor thug of no consequence. Di Lauro swore that he would never again attend such a meeting. He was a great one for drawing lessons from life. He liked to teach lessons, too. For instance: It is better to share profits than to fight over them. And: You have to be willing to go to war, but if violence is your only skill, you will lose in the end and die. And: Murder is bad because it attracts attention. And: If the police search your place, stay calm; do not act cocky; do not say more than necessary. Live modestly, dress modestly, drive modestly, do not carry a gun. Do not use drugs. If you want to gamble and whore around, that's fine, but do it somewhere far away, like Monaco or Marbella. Go with French women or Spanish. Here in Secondigliano, don't fuck casually with other men's wives and daughters. Here in Secondigliano, the only sound we should hear is the patter of cash.

Di Lauro amassed his power incrementally as people turned to him for decisions and help. He was careful to maintain respectful relations with other clans throughout the region, and yet to avoid the potentially dangerous entanglement of formal alliances. Particularly delicate were his dealings with a local family named Licciardi-a powerful clan well established in areas of Secondigliano and Scampia, with whom he managed repeatedly to avoid going to war even as his business expanded. That business was now based primarily on narcotics, with its five-fold profit margins, but not to the exclusion of other opportunities in the traditional realms of untaxed cigarettes, local gambling shops, and small-time extortion, as well as in the blossoming new market in counterfeit brands.

Miracles

By 1992, a decade after killing La Monica, Di Lauro was on his way to becoming one of the wealthiest men in Italy, with an uncountable fortune in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I recently spoke to Vittorio Giaquinto, his former lawyer-a large, immaculately dressed man sitting in the splendor of a baroque office-who is one of the few people who knew Di Lauro well. He said that Di Lauro was motivated less by greed than by operational logic, and by an unwavering determination, as an orphan himself, to provide for the long-term security of his family. As a gambler, Di Lauro knew that he was playing a loser's game and would have to diversify into legitimate businesses if he was to achieve that aim. He founded a holding company through which ultimately he went into textiles, home furnishings, meat and dairy products, bottled water, cash-and-carry wholesale markets, prepared-food distribution, shopping-mall development, residential real estate, hotels, restaurants, shops of all sorts in Secondigliano, and a clothing store in Paris in the 12th Arrondissement. People say that he accumulated a fortune in precious stones sufficient to pave the autostrada all the way to Rome. And yet, despite his understanding of the special risks, he was unwilling to quit dealing in drugs. He kept going, though knowing it could ruin him and, worse, destroy the lives of his wife and sons. In this endeavor he was a gambler unable to stop.

For Secondigliano, those were the golden years anyway. Di Lauro tried to guard himself against betrayal. His greatest defense was the business structure he built, arranged as a pyramid of independent entrepreneurs, acting as franchisees under his guidance, and respected by him as largely autonomous associates. There were about 20 at that level, each with the exclusive rights to a major drug piazza. They bought a minimum of narcotics from Di Lauro each week, and paid a significant rent, but beyond that they were free to earn as much from their piazzas as they could. This included going to outside vendors for additional supplies if they could find them at a better price than Di Lauro offered. He would even finance them, and at low interest rates, if they required it. In return, Di Lauro expected a certain code of behavior: within the clan, people would be treated fairly, down to the lowest level of associates; they would not quarrel stupidly with one another; they would recognize Di Lauro as an arbiter in cases where the quarrel was real; in other ways, also, they would recognize Di Lauro's authority at all times; they would not take independent action against any other group in the city; and, finally, they would never-never!-speak Di Lauro's name.

He was sensitive to the smallest signs of trouble. Simone Di Meo, a reporter who has written the best accounts of those times, told me that one day, in the center of Secondigliano, Di Lauro happened to notice a large group of motor scooters parked outside a bar. He sent a man inside to investigate. It turned out that a beautiful girl was being held until she chose one of her captors as a lover. Di Lauro sent word for the party to break up, saying he didn't want this sort of foolishness in his district. He was not much for flirtation or fun. It is said that he enjoyed practical jokes, but the only hint is contained in a story which may not be true: that he once dressed as a butcher in a butcher shop he owned and gave the shoppers 50 euros in change for every 5 euros they spent. The customers were embarrassed, one version goes, because they saw right through him, as if he were a king playing foolishly at pretend. The customers were so impressed to see him in the flesh, another version goes, that they lined up to kiss his hand.

But it is doubtful that Di Lauro ever put on such a show, or that his customers would have recognized him if he had. Within the community he was known mythically as "The Man." Within his own organization he was known as "Pasquale." He was the phantom, the unseen power who had transformed the northern districts of Naples into Europe's greatest drug emporium, but also employed many thousands of people and had effectively banished street crime from Secondigliano and Scampia. By the mid-1990s, rape, robbery, assault, and theft had all but disappeared. You could walk anywhere you wanted at any hour. If you had a car or motor scooter, you could park it anywhere without worry, except perhaps for the radio (because, after all, this was Italy). When the important newspaper Il Mattino published an article about illicit gambling in the districts, Di Lauro ordered that the gambling stop-and it did, permanently, within 48 hours. When he decided that the traditional business of extorting protection money from local shopkeepers was causing more trouble than it was worth, he ordered not only that it be halted but that his men start paying full prices, and even thank the shopkeepers for their services. It was strange, but they did. For this and all the favors he gave, he was widely loved-and still is. People say that the difference between Di Lauro and a saint was that Di Lauro delivered the miracles faster.

At his peak he was importing heavy loads of cocaine from Colombia (through Spain), heroin from Afghanistan (through Turkey, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans), and hashish from Morocco (again through Spain). These substances were not smuggled in through the port (where customs officials were too greedy) but were delivered overland by truck or car to Naples. Once in Secondigliano, the drugs were diluted and fed into the booming piazzas, as well as to an extensive wholesale network elsewhere in Italy, and in Germany and France. Meanwhile, Di Lauro was manufacturing counterfeit brand-name goods, which he wholesaled in Western Europe, Brazil, and the United States. Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Gucci, Prada-that sort of stuff. Some of the counterfeits were made by the same Italian factories that produced the originals, and were identical down to the stitching; others were crude knockoffs. It was a profitable business, and not the sort that would normally get you killed. An even better business turned out to be the trade in counterfeit cameras and power tools-shoddy Chinese imitations smuggled into Italy by Di Lauro and sold to the credulous far and wide.

So, great-or good enough. Di Lauro did not kidnap or rob. He sold to people what they came to him to find. But he himself seems to have been unsatisfied. He became increasingly reclusive and by the mid-1990s had withdrawn almost entirely into his house, where he lived behind closed steel shutters and bolted gates, refusing contact with all but his family and a few trusted lieutenants. He became pale from the lack of sun. His wife stayed inside with him, producing another baby every few years. The children eventually grew up and went to school. The family had a huge Neapolitan mastiff named Primo Carnera, after the Italian heavyweight boxer. The dog slept in his own room. The house was the same simple one Di Lauro had lived in as a child, though expanded, fortified, and guarded. It had a basement bar well stocked with French wines and liqueurs, a bunkroom for the boys, and a large, sparsely furnished living room where Di Lauro made decisions. The living room had religious icons on the walls. Di Lauro hardly dared to go to church. He hardly dared to use the phone. He had a back passage for escape. He eyed people closely when he spoke to them, and expressed himself in language so spare that it would have been difficult for outsiders to comprehend. The fact is that no outsiders were listening. But Di Lauro clearly feared that talk could bring him down. He was no longer just naturally taciturn. He was muted by his caution.

And if talk could bring him down, what about a language that the state could really understand-what about murder? The police had missed the meaning of La Monica's death, but afterward the question must often have been on Di Lauro's mind. He remained safely out of sight partly by suppressing the Camorra's tendency toward anarchic violence. He did condone some killings, but these were quiet actions within the clan, not public vendettas. For the safety of the group, regrettably, a few men had to be made to disappear. The kills were so clean that after 10 years, in 1992, the police still did not know that Di Lauro and his clan existed.

"The Rabbit Man"

But then, in that same year, Di Lauro briefly lost control. A former associate named Antonio Ruocco-the leader of a small clan in a nearby town-returned from prison and found that his piazza had been awarded to another man. Ruocco went to war and, after a couple of back-and-forth killings, gathered several gunmen, pulled up at a bar in Scampia, and opened fire with assault rifles, killing five of Di Lauro's closest associates and wounding nine others. If that was bad, the response was disastrous: certain members of Di Lauro's clan went rogue, and on their own authority set out not just to hunt down Ruocco but to exterminate his entire family. Ruocco survived by fleeing to Milan, but Di Lauro's men killed his aging mother, killed his uncle, shot his brother (he survived), shot his brother's wife (she died), and tried to kill a sister by locking her in a bathroom and setting it on fire (she escaped through a window and left town). Di Lauro was angry about these actions. The targeting of innocent family members-and particularly an old woman-constituted a serious violation of Camorra norms. Worse, the drama had called attention to the northern districts. Di Lauro regained control by having the woman's killers killed in turn, and by ordering a cease-fire, but dangerous questions had been raised that would not go away.

Three months later, in August 1992, the police found Ruocco in Milan, where he had been cowering in fear of Di Lauro's wrath. He jumped from a third-floor window when the police arrived, landed badly, and ended up in prison, where after a period of silence he began spilling the Camorra's secrets, including the story of La Monica's murder. It was the state's first break, but a lousy one. After much confusion and fuss, all that came of Ruocco's cooperation was his own conviction for conspiracy. By 1994 the ruckus had died down. According to Simone Di Meo, this was the moment when the Italian press first identified Di Lauro and his clan. If so, the police weren't reading the papers, because the detectives who later ran the seven-year investigation that ultimately brought Di Lauro down told me that at the start, in 1995, they had never heard of the man by name.

Unbeknownst to the police, Di Lauro had trouble again, in 1997, when some of his men killed a Licciardi nephew in what began as a quarrel over a woman in a bar, and the Licciardis responded by nailing a death list of 17 Di Lauro associates to a church door. It is said that Di Lauro himself ordered some of those on the list to be killed to show his good faith, but it seems more likely that he simply acquiesced in their fates. The list stayed on the door until a priest took it down. Most of the named 17 survived. For whatever reason, the two groups veered away from war and continued their wary coexistence as before. There was a lot of money being made. By now the police knew of a man named Di Lauro who was a local Camorrista, but they had no photographs of him and did not understand his role. They thought he was at most a mere captain, and in the Licciardi clan. A few detectives worked the case full-time. They kept tapping phones and trying to piece together the puzzle. Rarely could they understand what was being said: the communications were not merely guarded but illiterate and insular, like an entire micro-language that had to be learned. By plotting the connections, they eventually realized they were dealing with a pyramidal structure. They heard frequent references to someone named Pasquale. Sometimes he was called "the Rabbit Man." This may have meant that he had a large family or that he was fast. It seemed that he was the boss.

Civil War

The break in the case was an accident. In 1998 at an elementary school in the center of Secondigliano, a teacher shouted at a young Di Lauro cousin for misbehaving in class, and one of Di Lauro's sons-a 10-year-old named Antonio-took his cousin's defense by standing up and shouting back. The teacher reacted by giving Antonio a slap. Word of the incident traveled fast. It is said that when the boy got home Di Lauro scolded him for misbehaving. Others in the clan, however, felt that the family had been insulted. Three of them went to the school, sought out the teacher, and slapped him as he had slapped Di Lauro's son-or perhaps a little more. It is obvious that Di Lauro would never have sent them, but when the teacher filed an official complaint, the police took the occasion to summon Di Lauro to the district station for a conversation. He entered the station peacefully, leaving some associates outside, and was whisked to police headquarters in central Naples, where he denied any knowledge of the assault and claimed to be a shopkeeper. The police had to release him, but not before they took some mug shots-face forward and in profile-which now count among the few Di Lauro pictures that exist. Here he is in an open-necked blue shirt at age 45, emerging unwillingly from the shadows-balding, a bit fat, clean-shaven, impressively self-contained. He is a stoic at the height of his power. There is something in his composure-with the hint of a smile that is not a smile, and eyes subtly diverted from the camera-that conveys an unwavering autonomy. He sometimes insisted that he did not oppose the government, but it is clear in these pictures why the government should have feared him.

Pasquale? When the phone taps picked up the clan's excited chatter about Di Lauro's station visit, it suddenly became clear that Pasquale and Di Lauro were the same man, and therefore that Di Lauro, who was formerly seen as a minor character, was in fact a king. Di Lauro had long expected this disaster to strike. As a student of life he could not have been surprised that it was over an incident as minor as a spat with a teacher at school. Now that he could no longer hide in plain view, he withdrew even more deeply into his private world and began a peripatetic existence, moving between barren apartments in the district and only occasionally sleeping at home. Sometimes he traveled abroad to make deals and to gamble. When he returned he never mentioned where he had been or what he had done. No one cared so long as he remained in charge. He was sharing his wealth throughout Secondigliano and beyond. Many people believed that the state was too weak to touch him. Di Lauro certainly knew better, and he must have wondered why, subsequently, the state took so long to act.

The problem for the police was that no witnesses came forward to speak against the clan. This left the investigators to proceed in the most tedious manner-by continuing to tap the clan's phone calls (finally 7,990 conversations in all) and entering the evidence piecemeal into thick files for later review by a prosecuting judge. They had to meet the standards of Italian anti-Mafia laws similar to the American RICO statutes, which target direct association with criminal syndicates and allow for murder prosecutions based on command responsibility. Building the case took a full four years after the teacher-slapping incident, but in October 2002 orders were finally issued for the arrest of Paolo Di Lauro and 61 members of the clan. Within months, many of these people were picked up and jailed. Some of them were very close to Di Lauro, including Di Lauro's second-oldest son. As for Di Lauro himself, he was nowhere to be found. For several years he was on the run. People claimed to have spotted him in Marseilles, Athens, London, and Milan. Some newspapers reported that he had died. But his lawyer told me that not only was he alive but he had remained in Secondigliano the entire time. When I asked his lawyer why, he spread his hands as if to say, It's obvious. He said, "He loved his family." In fact, it was during his years as a fugitive that he and his wife conceived their 11th and final child. The lawyer told me he had wondered aloud if the child would perhaps at last be a girl, and Di Lauro answered that he could not even mention this to his wife because she might take the question as a criticism for not yet having provided him with a daughter. He was that in love with her, still. He cared for nothing if he did not care for his family.

In May 2004 one of his sons was killed in a motor-scooter accident. He was a passenger on the back, riding without a helmet. Di Lauro was devastated and became ineffectual for a while. This may help to explain why at around this time he made the greatest error of his life, when he decided to hand over power to a child he loved beyond reason, Cosimo, his firstborn son. Cosimo, aged 30, was a full-blown psychopath known for brutality. He wore long, stringy hair and black clothes in imitation of a gothic fantasy character from the movie The Crow. He kept a Lamborghini in Paris. He was a heartthrob for lower-class girls, who were thrilled by his aggression and his style. For much the same reason he was surrounded by a crew of young gunmen full of swagger. Cosimo had been involved in Camorra business since his teenage years and had recently concluded that the clan's principal associates, the long-honored franchisees, had grown too independent and greedy, and that his father-a mere accountant, after all-had lacked the courage to take them on. All that was going to change, now that he was in charge. Henceforward all drug supplies would be purchased exclusively from the Di Lauro family, and associates would essentially become its employees, to be paid as Cosimo saw fit, and under his control. Any who objected would be replaced-one way or another. It was obvious that the old-timers were not going to accept these terms, nor, for that matter, could they accept the authority of such an immature leader. Through an intermediary, Di Lauro ordered his son to desist. The intermediary said, "I bring a message from your father. Do not do this war." It was too late. Cosimo answered, "Papa doesn't count anymore."

The war that followed was one of the most intense in the Camorra's history, pitting a faction of former Di Lauro associates, now known as the Secessionists, against the new, younger gunmen, who stuck with Cosimo and retained the Di Lauro name. The fighting broke out in late 2004. In Secondigliano and Scampia that fall and winter at least 54 people were killed, sometimes several in a day. Paolo Di Lauro must have looked on in disgust and dismay. On one occasion, the former girlfriend of a Secessionist was captured by Cosimo's men, who tortured her (in vain) to get her to divulge her boyfriend's location, then murdered her and burned her body in a car. People were outraged even within the clan and they talked: this was Cosimo's doing. The police issued orders for Cosimo's arrest. He went into hiding in Secondigliano but sent so many text messages to various girlfriends that he was tracked down within a few weeks. When the police broke in, he was not armed. He went to a mirror to comb his hair back, and he put on a black leather coat to complement his black sweater and jeans. It was a January afternoon in 2005. By the time the police got him downstairs, several hundred neighborhood women had converged on the site and begun to riot. They dropped a toilet on the police from an upper-floor window, threw all manner of objects at them, and burned two police cars. Cosimo emerged into this scene, flanked by policemen, and stared directly into the cameras of the press. He was like a rock star playing to the paparazzi. The pictures that resulted became all the rage on schoolgirls' cell phones throughout Naples.

Was he proud of what he had done? Wars are so easy to start and hard to stop. Cosimo's lasted another month or two, and ended with the destruction of everything his father had built. For the Di Lauro clan, this was essentially a military defeat. The Secessionists were more numerous, more experienced, and better armed; the Di Lauros consisted now mostly of the pretenders who had accepted Cosimo's leadership. In the end it was Paolo Di Lauro, still in hiding, who sued for peace. Meetings between envoys were set up under the security guarantees of other clans. For additional safety, family members were swapped as hostages for the duration of the talks. In the end the two sides agreed on three crucial conditions. One: the Secessionists would now become a clan of their own, with no obligations to any Di Lauro. Two: the Secessionists who had fled their apartments could return at no risk to live in Secondigliano again. Three: Paolo Di Lauro would admit that his family had lost the war, and with it the rights to all of his piazzas except for an alley in the center of Secondigliano, and an apartment complex nearby, in a loyalist stronghold called Rioni dei Fiori, where the women had rioted for his beloved psychopathic son.

In the summer of 2005 there was such quiet on the northern front that Neapolitans assumed Di Lauro was back in charge. This was good news rather than bad. People did not know about his loss of power, and they could not have imagined that such a man would ever have surrendered. A few months later, on September 16, 2005, he was found by the police in the simple apartment of a humble old woman who had been sheltering and feeding him for a fee. He did not resist the police or make any comment when they walked in. He seemed to have been expecting the event. When he was taken outside, he kept his head down to foil the photographers. He did not strut. He did not cower. At the station, when asked, he said no more than he had said before. "I am Paolo Di Lauro, and I am a shopkeeper." He then fell silent, as he has been ever since.

Isolation

So love is dangerous after all. Paolo Di Lauro stood trial in the spring of 2006. He observed the first phase quietly, without obvious emotion. He was dressed modestly. About halfway through the trial, as more charges were leveled, he stopped attending the proceedings, gave up on his defense, and dismissed his longtime lawyer and friend. To the lawyer he said, "You should not be offended. There is no lack of respect implied." But there was also no point in carrying on. The court assigned him a public defender, as required by law, and in May 2006 Di Lauro was sentenced to the first of what have since turned into three consecutive 30-year prison terms for Mafia association, trafficking, and murder. His son Cosimo, in separate trials, was also sent away for life. The court seized any Di Lauro properties that could be found.

It was a victory for the state, but an empty one. War broke out again in 2006 between the Secessionists and the Di Lauro clan-now headed by another son-and seven people were murdered. The dynamics of the violence were extremely complex. It is believed that some of the dead may have been killed by the Licciardi to incite fighting by the two other sides. In the summer of 2007 it happened again, and 11 high-ranking Di Lauro associates were killed. That same year a group of loyalists who had stuck with the clan through the worst of the troubles finally broke off in disgust and assumed independent control of the central alley in Secondigliano, leaving the Di Lauros pathetically enfeebled and with only the single piazza in Rioni dei Fiori to use for selling drugs. Nearby, in Scampia, the Secessionists had control over multiple piazzas but were unable to usher in a new era of peace, as they must have wanted to. Rather, the opposite occurred, as fighting continued for reasons that seemed increasingly petty and confused. Soon enough, in 2010, the Secessionists themselves split into two groups-veterans of the war with Di Lauro, known as the Old Colonels, and upstarts led by a notoriously violent kid in his early 20s, known as Mariano, who rides around not on a motor scooter but on a powerful dual-purpose Transalp motorcycle, wearing a full-face helmet in the fashion of killers. The police know he is there but can never find him. He is coked up and certain to die young, and clearly he does not care.

This is the situation on the ground today, a chaos of constant splintering and murderous rivalries that shows no sign of sorting itself out. It is the pattern of the Camorra in Naples, as it has always been. There are periods of chaos, followed by peaceful times when men like Di Lauro rise, followed by chaos again when men like Di Lauro fall. The remnants of his clan are headed now by a son named Marco, a fugitive from the law, who is widely disrespected for being foolish and weak. Somewhere in Naples, in some other family, the next great leader in all likelihood has already been born, but until he emerges onto the scene demonstrating particular strength and wisdom he cannot be identified. Meanwhile, for those in the game in Secondigliano and Scampia, there are so many different ways to die, and every one of them is a surprise.

The government wanders this terrain on its own uncertain missions. You have to wonder what it is trying to achieve when, for instance, it stops some people for questioning on the streets, or throws others in prison forever. In a place like Italy-where the recent prime minister condones tax evasion as a natural right and publicly impugns the courts-it becomes hard to believe that police actions are sincerely about law and order, or that officials still believe that law and order matter. As warfare raged within the Camorra, Italy itself was teetering on the edge of economic collapse and threatening to drag the rest of Europe with it-and largely because of mismanagement by a succession of corrupt and cynical governments. One day in Naples I was told of a police raid under way against what was left of the Di Lauro clan in Secondigliano. I rushed to Rioni dei Fiori and came upon an opera, with a helicopter thumping overhead and the streets guarded by uniformed officers for blocks around. At the center of the operation stood the piazza itself, a typically filthy apartment complex built around a central square littered with trash and stained with at least one large smear of human excrement. The clan had obviously heard about the raid in advance and had quietly shut its operations for the day. As a result, there were no drugs to be found, no arrests to be made. Firemen broke down a steel door and removed some fortifications that the clan had installed at the two access gates to the courtyard. Then the raid was over. The man in charge was a detective. I asked him what purpose the raid had served. "It was a show of state power," he said. "Of making the dealers flee like rats. It was a public humiliation. That was the purpose. But we are not stupid. We know they will come back to take over the piazza and control the gates again. Probably by tomorrow. Look, we can squeeze the Camorra, but we know we can't stop it."

And maybe that doesn't matter. People may wring their hands about the horror of it all, but this is Naples, one of the great alternatives to modern life. It is possible that the world should no more root out the Camorra than make Neapolitans operate on time. And then there is the practical side. An anti-Mafia judge told me that some of the police-even those who have not been corrupted-would rather not see the government prevail, because they fear the even greater disorder that would result. Another judge pointed out to me that the government needs the Camorra for social control. He said, "For a political leader, it's easier to speak to a Camorra boss than to 100,000 people to get a message across." More than that, he said: the Camorra sets standards, enforces laws, keeps police power itself in check, fends off aggressive tax collectors, employs a huge percentage of the population, creates and distributes wealth more efficiently than any other sector of society, and stands in to keep things going, especially in times like these, when the national economy has failed and the currency itself is at risk.

It's hardly the system you would dream up in a civics class. Nonetheless the Camorra serves society best when it is strong. The judges I spoke to all recognized this truth, and yet these were the same people who had taken Di Lauro down. I asked them if they believed in the superiority of the Italian state, and all but one replied no. That one said, to paraphrase, "We have no choice. The Camorra has created an anti-state whose very existence threatens the legitimacy of the Italian state. If the courts did not act, they would not be real. If the courts are not real, Italy will not endure. Our role is not to prevail over the Camorra but to go through the motions of trying." I mentioned this to a Camorra defense lawyer. She knew the judge in question. She said, "The anti-state is the state itself. It is the state, not the Camorra, that is strangling Italy." She seemed to prefer the criminals to the officials. Most Neapolitans would agree. They demonstrate daily the extent to which they can live without Italy. And if Di Lauro ever came back, their celebrations would shut down the city.

That will probably never happen. Di Lauro will turn 59 this year in a maximum-security prison 40 miles northwest of Rome in the town of Viterbo. He is being held there under a prison regime called 41-bis-a program of severe and indefinite isolation by which Mafia leaders can be kept under 24-hour surveillance, cut off from contact even with guards, denied access to national or regional news, and allowed visits only from their lawyers and, for one hour a month-behind plate glass, by monitored phone-a designated member of their immediate family accompanied only by those children who are minors. The primary intent is to separate Mafia leaders from their organizations, and to prevent them from directing operations from within the prisons. The resulting conditions, however, are so extreme that in 2007 the European Court of Human Rights held that certain aspects are in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, and that same year a U.S. judge refused to extradite a heroin trafficker to Italy because of concerns that 41-bis would be applied to him and might constitute torture. Indeed, the regime, which is easily lifted when the government chooses, has repeatedly served a coercive purpose, ultimately persuading a line of hardened men to give evidence to the courts in return for relief from the promise of eternal solitude.

But Di Lauro is not one of them. It is not clear whether he has anything to read. I have been told that he spends his time in contemplation, chain-smoking cigarettes. It is an extraordinarily disciplined response. He knows that he can end the suffering if he begins to talk, but this he refuses to do. Instead, he has chosen the opposite course, an even greater extreme than 41-bis imposes, and has begun refusing not only any further contact with lawyers, but also the monthly conversation he is allowed with his wife. He must still love her, but he is the master of silence. Trapped by the state, he remains the master of himself.

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The Neapolitan Mob's Most Dangerous Family

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One of the Neapolitan underworld's most powerful bosses, Paolo Di Lauro was invisible to the Italian police for most of his career. But since his 2005 capture, William Langewiesche reports, some wonder if Di Lauro was the only man capable of controlling Naples's meanest streets. Photographs by Massimo Vitali.

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 “I don’t deal with drugs anymore. Now I have another business. It pays more and the risk is less. It’s called garbage. For us, garbage is gold” (DeRosa, 2016

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 “I don’t deal with drugs anymore. Now I have another business. It pays more and the risk is less. It’s called garbage. For us, garbage is gold” (DeRosa, 2016

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Our history has always been rooted in technology, design, and innovation. Plastic remains one of the most functional and democratic materials in existence. For years, we have dedicated ourselves to its responsible use through technology that fosters proper waste disposal and recycling/reuse. Our processes have a low environmental impact and we only produce 100% recyclable or compostable packaging.

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Wrappers are manufactured using imported virgin grade MG CAP paper. There are various wrapper sizes which caters for different variants of citrus fruits that are then individually wrapped in the wrapper and packaged for export. Azapak can provide both plain (white) and Customised Branded wrappers.

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Label description fields:

1. Text: the words, numbers and special characters on the label

2. Graphic: a description of a picture or motif

3. Fruit: the fruit type on which the label was found

4. Colours: {colours} on background colour.

1. [company name]

2. [brand name] [® Registered Trade Mark] [™ Trade Mark]

3. [fruit name] [fruit number #nnnn]

4. [country of origin]

5. [comment, eg. sweet and juicy]

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Fruit Wrappers
Part of the World of Fruit Labels

Document URL: http://www.nationalfinder.com/fruitwrappers/index.htm
Document size: about 13 A4 pages when printed
Updated: 7 March 2008

Compiled by Roger Harris ©2001-2008
E-mail: fruitwrappers@nationalfinder.com

Unlike fruit labels where the limited space is tightly filled with design elements, many fruit wrapper designs are mostly composed of blank space on the tissue paper backing - the design itself occupies not much more than about ten or twelve percent of the total area. To show the blank spaces too would increase considerably the size of the image files and consequently the downloading times. Most of the images have therefore been cropped to remove the blank spaces.

More than 170 small images (average size: 10.4 Kbytes) totalling about 1.75 MBytes are displayed on this page. In order to reduce the downloading time the images shown are all quite small. Click on an image to display a much larger version (average size: 158 KBytes) which will be downloaded individually. The time required might exceed 15 seconds.

There are several other fruit wrapper web-sites. Here are a few ....

1. Romana Gardani: http://www.geocities.com/nonsoloarance/home.html

2. The HoBB: http://uk.geocities.com/fruitwrappers/ orhttp://www.geocities.com/fruitwrappers/

3. OPIUM Das OrangenPapier Museum: http://www.opium.business.t-online.de

4. Gábor Vehovszky: http://wrappers.fw.hu/

5. Mark Wickens: http://pages.infinit.net/wickens

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Fruit Wrappers - decorated tissue papers which are used to wrap oranges, lemons, apples and pears.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fruit Wrappers Part of the World of Fruit Labels Document URL: http://www.nationalfinder.com/fruitwrappers/index.htm Document size: about 13 A4 pages when printedUpdated: 7 March 2008 Compiled by Roger Harris ©2001-2008 E-mail: fruitwrappers@nationalfinder.com Unlike fruit labels where the limited space is tightly filled with design elements, many fruit wrapper designs are mostly composed of blank space on the tissue paper backing - the design itself occupies not much more than about ten or twelve percent of the total area.

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The distinctive feature of the class of fruit wrappers is their irremovable wrinkling. Trying to get rid of this feature of the wrappers is useless, and, apparently, is not worth it, since any thermal ironing e.g. with even a slightly heated iron can destroy the elasticity of the wrapper paper and harm its colorful layer. It is better smooth out them with palms on a flat surface and slightly "cure" them by gluing real tissue paper on the back of the wrapper along the tears, if any.

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The distinctive feature of the class of fruit wrappers is their irremovable wrinkling. Trying to get rid of this feature of the wrappers is useless, and, apparently, is not worth it, since any thermal ironing e.g. with even a slightly heated iron can destroy the elasticity of the wrapper paper and harm its colorful layer. It is better smooth out them with palms on a flat surface and slightly "cure" them by gluing real tissue paper on the back of the wrapper along the tears, if any.

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Classic fruit wrappers are rectangular sheets of slightly waxed paper with sizes in the range of 20-28 cm, usually with colorful images of the same logos and brands of fruit companies as on fruit stickers. 

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Classic fruit wrappers are rectangular sheets of slightly waxed paper with sizes in the range of 20-28 cm, usually with colorful images of the same logos and brands of fruit companies as on fruit stickers. 

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 “agrumist” and “agrumistics” associated with collecting of fruit wrappers are used until now.

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 “agrumist” and “agrumistics” associated with collecting of fruit wrappers are used until now.

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Shop White Waxed Paper Roll from wholesale supplier WBC. No minimum order and fast delivery. Order online today.

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 1960 Ermanno Fabbri, who succeeded his father, founded Automac and launched the first machine to automatically wrap citrus fruits, with special paraffin paper. This is how the current Fabbri strategy based on the “integrated synergy” between machines and films was born to offer the market a complete food packaging system including packaging machines and consumables.

# data[].attributes.subject
 1960 Ermanno Fabbri, who succeeded his father, founded Automac and launched the first machine to automatically wrap citrus fruits, with special paraffin paper. This is how the current Fabbri strategy based on the “integrated synergy” between machines and films was born to offer the market a complete food packaging system including packaging machines and consumables.

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EPHEMERA - FRUIT WRAPPERS, circa 1920-1930.

An album of laid down fruit wrappers, including examples from Spain, South Africa, Rhodesia, Italy, Brazil, etc. [Undated but probably circa 1920-1930]. Small quarto (8 x 6 3/8in; 203 x 162mm). 137 examples (136 examples on 32 pages, 1 example on inside rear cover), printed in 1-3 different colors. (All laid down, a few with damage to the image area). Original textured thick paper wrappers, leaves stapled in place (as issued) (Some leaves now loosely inserted, rubbing to extremities). Provenance: bought recently at auction in England.

A spectacular selection of these highly ephemeral pieces of printing history - the best designs are almost a folk art in their own rite. The dating can be problematic. I have dated the present selection using one particular label as a guide: on the third page is an ' "Our Sam" Brand Extra Selected' label - English Rugby player Sam Tucker, known as 'Our Sam', played his first International match in 1922 and his last in 1931.

"The history of fruit wrappers dovetails nicely with the early practice of graphic design long before this term was ever coined. The practice of wrapping fruit with tissue papers "began as a means of controlling the spread of fungal decay" according to Maurice Rickards in his book Encyclopedia of Ephemera. They were originally introduced for wrapping citrus fruits like oranges and lemons in the late 19th century, but were later adopted for apricots, tomatoes and other produce. Soon growers discovered that these thin square paper wrappers could be effective marketing tools when printed with their identification. A typical wrapper would include the growers name, the brand name, the country of origin and an illustration. They were normally printed in three to five colors on large rotary presses with rubber plates; accounting for imprecise registration and loss of detail, similar to the printing found on old matchbooks." (letterology.blogspot.com)

Binding Condition: Acceptabel

Overall Condition: Acceptable

Size: 8 x 6 3/8in; 203 x 162mm

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An Album Of Laid Down Fruit Wrappers, Including Examples From Spain, South Africa, Rhodesia, Italy, Brazil, Etc. - Auction #3 | AntiquarianAuctions.com

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EPHEMERA - FRUIT WRAPPERS, circa 1920-1930. An album of laid down fruit wrappers, including examples from Spain, South Africa, Rhodesia, Italy, Brazil, etc. [Undated but probably circa 1920-1930]. Small quarto (8 x 6 3/8in; 203 x 162mm). 137 examples (136 examples on 32 pages, 1 example on inside rear cover), printed in 1-3 different colors.

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https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/587/types-of-food-wrapping-paper.html

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https://youtu.be/hEq1EZe8TPo

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The Victoria & Albert, one of the world’s great museums for all kinds of popular culture, published in 1985 Orange and Lemons: Fruit Wrappers from the Victoria & Albert Museum. It is hard to contemplate how many of these beautiful coarsely printed bits of ephemera have been produced.

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Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections

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Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level D , Case 94, Shelf D, Box 90

Fruit wrapper with a design of citrus boughs, printed on pink paper. Sicilian.Lettered Paterno.

Categories

Object type

Additional title

Orange wrappers

Brief description

Colour relief print from an album of fruit wrappers from various countries, ca. 1930-1940.

Physical description

Fruit wrapper with a design of citrus boughs, printed on pink paper. Sicilian.Lettered Paterno.

Dimensions

Series Measurements: Average size 19 x 20 cm.

Collection

Accession number

About this object record

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Fruit wrapper | Unknown | V&A Explore The Collections

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Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level D , Case 94, Shelf D, Box 90 Fruit wrapper with a design of citrus boughs, printed on pink paper. Sicilian.Lettered Paterno. Categories Object type Additional title Orange wrappers Brief description Colour relief print from an album of fruit wrappers from various countries, ca.

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Fruit wrappers unwrapped | Object in Focus | V&A

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Tissue paper preservative wrapper for citrus fruits and method of making same Download PDF

Publication number

US2173453A
US2173453A US274170A US27417039A US2173453A US 2173453 A US2173453 A US 2173453A US 274170 A US274170 A US 274170A US 27417039 A US27417039 A US 27417039A US 2173453 A US2173453 A US 2173453A
Authority

US

United States

Prior art keywords

fruit

wrapper

sheet

mixture

tissue paper

Prior art date

Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)

Expired - Lifetime

Application number

US274170A

Inventor

Robert G Mispley

William R Barber

Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)

James River Corp of Nevada

Original Assignee

Crown Zellerbach Corp

Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)

Filing date

Publication date

Application granted granted Critical

Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical

D-TEXTILES; PAPER

D21-PAPER-MAKING; PRODUCTION OF CELLULOSE

D21H-PULP COMPOSITIONS; PREPARATION THEREOF NOT COVERED BY SUBCLASSES D21C OR D21D; IMPREGNATING OR COATING OF PAPER; TREATMENT OF FINISHED PAPER NOT COVERED BY CLASS B31 OR SUBCLASS D21G; PAPER NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR

D21H21/00-Non-fibrous material added to the pulp, characterised by its function, form or properties; Paper-impregnating or coating material, characterised by its function, form or properties

D21H21/14-Non-fibrous material added to the pulp, characterised by its function, form or properties; Paper-impregnating or coating material, characterised by its function, form or properties characterised by function or properties in or on the paper

D21H21/36-Biocidal agents, e.g. fungicidal, bactericidal, insecticidal agents

P 19, 1939- R. G. MISPLEY ET AL 2,173,453

TISSUE PAPER PRESERVATI E WRAPPER FOR CITRUS FRUITS AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME Filed May 17, 1939 Inven for Roberz G. Mz'splqy WzYlz'am 1?. Barber By 'MQL malaise 19,1939

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE TISSUE PAPER. PRE

SERVATIVE WRAPPER FOR CITRUS FRUITS AND METHOD OF MAKIN GSAME tion, San Francisco, Nevada Application May 17, 1939, Serial No. 274,170

The object of our inventionv is to provide tissue paper citrus fruit-particularly, oranges, grapefruit-and lemons-wrappers of the usual weight, softness and strength, which shall hold 5 material imparting to these wrappers the added property of efilciently preserving the individual fruit pieces from depreciation in quality and protect them against mold infection, during the maximum period of time to be taken into consideration for the delivery of the fruit after packing to the consumer.

We have discovered that the preservation of the quality of citrus fruit during such period is not alone. a, matter of controlling (retarding and preventing) mold growths and other blemishes characteristic of citrus fruits, but that three distinct factors must be considered in assuring the sum-total of the desired objective of fruit quality preservation by means of a tissue paper wrap- 0 per. These factors are:

1. Bruising as occasioned by squeezing, abra- 'sion, creasing, etc.,-in the course of making up,

transporting and handling the package or pack",

and which affects the fruit in its entirety;

2. Shrinking caused by water loss by evaporation through the pores of the fruit, which affects the fruit by depreciating its fullness, plumpness and luster; and

3. The various mold growths with which citrus fruit becomes infected, for example blue mold,

The usual tissue paper wrapper may be said to exert some preservative effect including all these factors; but the protection thus accorded to the fruit does not meet full requirements, as-

suring the preservation of the fruit during its transit from place where packed to the consumer.

In the first place, it is just as important to the seller of citrus fruits that the fruit retain its 40 qualities of freshness, that is, fullness and luster of appearance,in other words, show no evidence of shrunken appearance, and be free from surface blemishes arising from jostling in shipment and handling-, as it is that the seller .be pro tected from wasteof fruit by having to sort out and discard the fruit pieces whichare decayed and spoiled by mold.

We have therefore concluded that mold control by the impregnation of the wrapper with a toxic chemical must not be the soleobjective. The result to be achieved must include all of the three factors above mentioned. The, wrapper must possess sufllcient moistureproofness to prevent the wrapper from breaking down and dis- 5 integrating by wetting from mushy, contiguous Calif" a corporation of decayed pieces of fruit, which induces spreading of the mold. To avoid this, it is necessary that each individual piece of fruit be inclosed in a wrapper having suflic'ient resistance to moisture so that when one piece of fruit becomes molded and mushy it will be held together, and isolated from wetting and infecting a contiguous or adjacent piece of fruit. Our study and observation along this line further demonstrated that mere haphazard, more or less, moistureproofness of the wrapper is not enough; the moistureproofness must be fixed within certain definite limits. We found that a high degree of moistureproofness, such as obtained, for example, in a heavily paraffinwaxed sheet is detrimental and must be avoided. A fundamental consideration which must be given to the successful handling and storage of fresh fruits is that they are alive and carry on vital biological processes much the same after as before they are harvested. The most important of these biological processes is respiration.

A high degree of moistureproofness is undesirable because of the condensation and retention of the moisture-vapor of the fruit's respiration inside the wrapper. Thus while a wrapper having a high degree of moistureproofness is effective for preventing mold spread from one piece of infected fruit to another, the vapor condensation to water within the wrapper tends to "induce and accelerate self-infection of a sound piece of fruit. On the other hand, fruit kept in wrappers possessing suflicient moistureproofness retains its plumpness and has only negligible shrinkage or weight loss which, as mentioned, is

desirable in order to preserve the selling appearance of the fruit.

One of the main objects of our invention, therefore, is to impart to the tissue paper wrapper such moistureproo'fness as will enable the sheet to resist suificiently disintegration by wetness, and yet prevent the sheet retaining within the wrapper of the fruit substantially all the moisture content of the respiration of the fruit, since such moisture retention is apt to cause senility and decay.

Our tests and observations have demonstrated that it is not a mere matter of giving the tissue paper citrus fruit wrapper some degree of moistureproofness, but the moistureproofness of the sheet must be controlled and fixed between narrowand definite limits in order to obtain positive and emcient results.

We accomplish the imparting to the sheet the required moistureproofness by the use of liquid paramn oil fortified with a paramn wax admixed, the two being miscible. Liquid parafiin oil is well known in its use on tissue paper fruit wrappers, but by itself is of little value as a moisture proofing agent. We found that it required the addition of parafiin wax in order to obtain a suitable material. We found a mixture consisting of liquid paramn oil having admixed with it 25% of parafiin wax very efficient. We have used parafiin wax of 127-133 F. melting point and a liquid parafiin oil of Saybolt viscosity.

This designation, however, is not to be understood as excluding parafiin waxes, mineral oils or mineral hydrocarbons of other melting points andwiscosities so long as the mixture produced lends itself to our purpose. We will hereinafter refer to this element of our invention as our paraffin-oil-wax mixture. But the mere use of a suitable moisture-proofing material for the tissue paper does not solve the problem. The limitation of the amount of this mixture introduced into the sheet must be suiiicient to impart to the sheet the required moisture-resistance, but must not result in too close confinement of the moisture exuded by the fruit withinthe wrapper.

Our tests and observations further demonstrated that an effective fungi-controlling chemical agent with which to impregnate the sheet is a further -indispensable factor. We find such agent in diphenyl, which, furthermore, is compatible with mineral hydrocarbons such as liquid parafiin oil and parailln wax, being miscible or soluble in them. Our tests and observations further demonstrated that the impregnation of the tissue sheet with diphenyl is best accomplished through the medium of our oil-paraflinwax mixture, such as above mentioned; thus utilizing this parafiin-oil-wax mixture in the dual capacity of introducing the chemical into the sheet, and at the same time effecting the retention and prolongation of the effectiveness ,of the chemical, and, furthermore, imparting to the sheet the required moistureproofness. Our experiments have demonstrated that tissue paper citrus fruit wrappers should be impregnated with approximately .0175 to .0297 of its weight with diphenyl. Such amount is critical. It assures a positive eflect in mold control. A higher amount would introduce the possibility of damage to the fruit, andbesides would incur an economic waste. V Our experiments have further demonstrated that the diphenyl should be carried into the tissue sheet by the use of a parafiin oil mixture used as the carrier, and prepared substantially as above stated. The proportioning of paraifin oil and wax mixture relatively to the weight of thetissue sheet is also critical. Too small an amount fails to impart to the sheet the required moistureproofness, and too great an amount would be apt to render the tissue too moistureproof, and retain within the wrapper inclosing the fruit to too great an extent the moisture exhaled by the fruit, and thereby contribute to the spoiling of the fruit as above mentioned.

Our research and prolonged tests have demonstrated that the best treatment of tissue paper to be used as fruit wrappers, in order to obtain positive and optimum results, assuring the-retention in the fruit of its natural freshness, fullness andluster of appearance, and protection of the individual fruit pieces against infection by mold froman adjacent contiguous decayed fruit piece, is by impregnating the tissue sheet with approximately 7% to 9% of its weight with our said parafiin-oil-wax mixture, with the latter mixture holding approximately 25% to 33% of its weight of diphenyl.

Our procedure-for effecting the impregnation of. the tissue sheet is, first, to make up the parafiin-oil-wax mixture and then dissolve in this mixture approximately 25% to 33% of its weight of diphenyl, and then apply the final mixture so produced to the tissue sheet by any convenient means, ,so that the treated sheet will carry approximately 7% to'9% of its weight of said parafiln-oil-wax mixture solvent with the latter holding said amount of diphenyl. In other words, the-treated sheet must hold 7% to 9% of its weight of said parafiln-oil-wax mixture to give it therequired resistance to disintegration by moisture and without retaining all moisture exuded by the fruit within the sheet wrapped around the latter. And the paraifin-oil-wax mixture must have dissolved in it said percentage of diphenyl. Thus the-treated sheet will hold about 8.75 to 11.97 per cent of its weight of said oil-wax-diphenyl final mixture, and the latter figures may be used in determining whether the sheet has applied to it the required amount of said final oil-wax-diphenyl mixture.

The application of said final mixture to the sheet is conveniently made while the sheet -is in process of making. But the application may also be made in the rewinding of the rolls taken off the machine into. finished shipping rolls.

We have found it convenient to apply said final mixture to the sheet in the manner and by the devices illustrated in the accompanying drawing constituting-a part of this specification.

In the drawing, (1. represents a drying cylinder from which the sheet I) is led over guide rolls 0, c, thence over application roll 71., over guide rolls d, d, etc. The application roll it is rotated at variable speed in a vat e containing said final mixture, which is heated by a steam jacket receiving heating steam from a suitable source thru pipe 9. ,The temperature of the material of the final mixture contained in the vat e must be 130-140 F. so as to keep the mixture in a suitable liquid state. The speed of rotation of the application roll h may be controlledand thus the amount of final mixture applied to the sheet b be controlled-by any suitable device, for example by Reeves drive, indicated by i, connected by belt 1 with the application roll h. The method pursued, however, to cause the treated sheet to hold the required amount of final mixture is a matter of choice and expediency. The essential feature of our invention is that the treated sheet hold said amount of the parafiin-oil-waxdiphenyl mixture.

1. A preservative tissue paper fruit wrapper containing about .0175 to .0297 of its weight of diphenyl bonded to the sheet by a solvent carrying said diphenyl and consisting of liquid parafiin oil fortified with paraflln wax, said diphenyl carrying solvent approximating between 7% to 9% of the weight of the paper, the wrapper being characterized by its resistance to disintegration by contact with moisture and by its capacity to ing said diphenyl and consisting of liquid paraflin oil fortified with approximately 25% of its weight with paraflin wax, said diphenyl carrying solvent approximating between 7% to 9% of the weight of the paper, the wrapper being characterized by its resistance to distintegration by contact with moisture and by its capacity to prevent the dissipation and thus the loss in effect of said diphenyl by volatilization for a relatively long period of time, the wrapper permitting respiration of the fruit wrapped in it yet controlling evaporation of the fruit thru its pores.

3. The method of producing a fruit preservative fruit tissue paper wrapper having the capac ity to resist disintegration by contact with moisture and also to retain the effectiveness of the preservative chemical for a relatively long period of time, which method consists in preparing a mineral hydrocarbon mixture consisting of paraflln oil and paraffin wax, dissolving in such mixture in the amount of approximately 25%-33% of its weight of diphenyl, impregnating the tissue sheet with a final mixture so produced, and controlling the amount of final mixture applied to the sheet so as to be about 8.75% to 11.97% of the weight of the sheet.

4. The method of producing a fruit preserva-.

the amount of approximately 25% to 33% of its weight of dlphenyl, impregnating the tissue sheet with a final mixture so produced, and controlling the amount of final mixture applied to the sheet so as to be about 8.75% to 11.97% of the weight oi the sheet.

ROBERT G. MrsPLEY. WILLIAM R. BARBER.

US274170A 1939-05-17 1939-05-17 Tissue paper preservative wrapper for citrus fruits and method of making same Expired - Lifetime US2173453A (en)

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US274170A US2173453A (en)

1939-05-17

1939-05-17

Tissue paper preservative wrapper for citrus fruits and method of making same

Application Number

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US274170A US2173453A (en)

1939-05-17

1939-05-17

Tissue paper preservative wrapper for citrus fruits and method of making same

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US2173453A true US2173453A (en)

1939-09-19

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US274170A Expired - Lifetime US2173453A (en)

1939-05-17

1939-05-17

Tissue paper preservative wrapper for citrus fruits and method of making same

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Hardenburg

Benomyl and Thiabendazole Treatments Reduce Decay of Apples in Polyethylene Consumer Bags1

Rodriguez-Felix et al.

Effects of postharvest treatments on the quality of tuna during storage

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US2173453A - Tissue paper preservative wrapper for citrus fruits and method of making same - Google Patents

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Tissue paper preservative wrapper for citrus fruits and method of making same Download PDF Publication number US2173453A US2173453A US274170A US27417039A US2173453A US 2173453 A US2173453 A US 2173453A US 274170 A US274170 A US 274170A US 27417039 A US27417039 A US 27417039A US 2173453 A US2173453 A US 2173453AAuthority US United States Prior art keywords fruit wrapper sheet mixture tissue paper Prior art date Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion.

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The future’s bright thanks to orange: Pensioner sells collection of fruit wrappers to fund holiday with his wife

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Eric Bradshaw, 83, has 2,797 different designs meticulously stuck into albums. The collection was started in the early 1920s by Mr Bradshaw’s grandfather Fred.

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Keren McConnell’s Fruit Wrappers | Spitalfields Life

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This is the season for oranges and lemons, so I was more than delighted when Keren McConnell kindly sent me her glorious fruit wrapper collection from the seventies to share with you. If any other readers have ephemera collections, please get in touch.

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Why does a nectarine need a registration number, asks writer Will Dunn. Read Will’s rant about why stickers on fruit should be banned.

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The fruit sticker collection of Eugen Oker. The Munich writer Eugen Oker (1919 - 2006) embodies the sly mentality of a Jack of all tales and was the inventor of the journalistic "Game Reviews". He wrote Poems, novels, nonsense tales, children´s books, biographies and satirical novels on war and dictatorship as well. With his view of the world as a mere Collection of surprising and amiable absurdities he was a brother in Spirit of Karl Valentin, Ludwig Thoma or Oskar Maria Graf. In 1980 he started a Collection of fruit Stickers, so called "biggerln".

With an almost manic insistance he collect approx. 3500 of those items what seems to be considered the world´s biggest fruit sticker Collection. Oker randomly adhered them to A4- cardboard in a chaotic way characterized by a nonchalant anti- order. So he celebrates in a way a dadaistic game with the conventions of professional collecting. But therefore the grafical and advertisment specialities of these important documents of the history of trade with their almost anarchistic colorfulness as a caleidoscopic concert of the different fonts, shapes and Formats become clear in a fascinating mood. In this respect this Collection is likeable and authentic, ambiguous and casual at the same time.

Verlag: Koch, Schmidt u. Wilhelm
Seitenzahl: 88
Ersterscheinung: 01.01.2018
ISBN: 9783943242836

27,00 €
inkl. MwSt

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The fruit sticker collection of Eugen Oker. The Munich writer Eugen Oker (1919 - 2006) embodies the sly mentality of a Jack of all tales and was the inventor of the journalistic "Game Reviews". He wrote Poems, novels, nonsense tales, children´s books, biographies and satirical novels on war and dictatorship as well.

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Légufrulabélophile - fruit sticker collector

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Légufrulabélophile - fruit sticker collector

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I don’t remember exactly why I started keeping them, and I still don’t know what attracts me most about the tiny sticky pieces: seeing them on the fruits or stocking them in my notebook, all together.

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I don’t remember exactly why I started keeping them, and I still don’t know what attracts me most about the tiny sticky pieces: seeing them on the fruits or stocking them in my notebook, all together.

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Kate's Collecting Tips

"You have to struggle with many of the newer plastic fruit stickers. They stick to the fruit very well but look out for ones with little unsticky ends, which were probably invented specially for Collectors like us, as they enable an easy peel without damaging the sticker."

Collecting fruit stickers and wrappers is an easy to do, fun, enjoyable and rewarding hobby. There are an inestimable number of Sticker designs from all over the World, whilst most fruit Wrappers come from Italy and Spain.

Today, it may seem that beautiful and interesting wrappings are vanishing but so often shops remove these decorative wrappers before displaying the fruit!

It is possible by asking fruit retailers and sometimes wholesalers, to put aside fruit with stickers and wrappers as they come in especially for you. By getting to know your regular fruiterer you can create a beautiful collection and enjoy healthy eating at the same time.

Many fine graphic artists are being unaccountably neglected as their works are damaged or discarded. This can result in your collections becoming more rare than you might imagine. For young collectors, banana fruit stickers are some of the easiest to collect .... as they peel off in an easy manner and there's more banana stickers than any other fruit stickers in the world.

Like early postage stamps, it can be exciting to study the new issues, and who knows, they may become the 'collectors' pieces of the future. They seem to have done so in the United States, and elswhere, with adults having pride of place in their wallets for new examples!

Try to collect undamaged stickers and wrappers - those without tears or marks arising from the fruit or other liquids.

When ironing your fruit wrappers always iron on the wrong side (not the printed side) and be careful to choose the coolest heat setting on the iron that is necessary to smooth your wrapping.

Don't iron self adhesive stickers on the right or wrong side! Remember, patience is vital as there may not be another example like the one you have collected! Oh yeah, and be sure to use an old tea towel or a piece of old cotton material like a sheet, douvet, pillow case or perhaps a T-shirt, so that you don't damage the family ironing board.

If you don't need a sticker you have collected on a fruit, make sure you peel off the sticker so it can be put into your plastic recycling bin. It was much easier when stickers were paper as they could be left on the fruit peel when put in the kitchen compost.

Presentation Hint:
I was sent a totally fantastic "COLLECTION" of wrappers from the opium orangenpapiermuseum in Germany and they were mounted onto stiff A4 paper with their overlapping edges folded around the back and fastened. It's a great system to keep your collection in good order from a great orange paper museum.

Some wrappers from the 1930 Wallis Collection:

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Kate's Collecting Tips "You have to struggle with many of the newer plastic fruit stickers. They stick to the fruit very well but look out for ones with little unsticky ends, which were probably invented specially for Collectors like us, as they enable an easy peel without damaging the sticker."

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So next time you find yourself peeling a sticker from your orange, take a closer look before you chuck it in the trash, because you may be holding one of the tiniest forms of branding ever created.

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So next time you find yourself peeling a sticker from your orange, take a closer look before you chuck it in the trash, because you may be holding one of the tiniest forms of branding ever created.

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having a name like “Infinita” or “La Soculente” (The Succulent) helped businesses, often small family-run affairs, stand out from the crowd.

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having a name like “Infinita” or “La Soculente” (The Succulent) helped businesses, often small family-run affairs, stand out from the crowd.

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The delightful history of fruit stickers, the world's tiniest canvases for graphic design

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A new exhibition celebrates the grocery-store gems, which have been around for almost a century.

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Go to the closest trash can. Examine the exterior and the crusty walls inside. Search the folds of shiny, black garbage bag hanging over the edge. Somewhere in there hangs a fruit sticker, ripped off of an apple or banana and smacked on its ugly new home. To most, these stickers are a nuisance, an inconveniently placed speed bump. But if you take the time to look at them, they’re something else entirely. Art. Design. Typography. Personality. Fruit stickers hold them all, and it wasn’t until we discovered @Fruit_stickers that we became so acutely aware of this under-appreciated art form.

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Go to the closest trash can. Examine the exterior and the crusty walls inside. Search the folds of shiny, black garbage bag hanging over the edge. Somewhere in there hangs a fruit sticker, ripped off of an apple or banana and smacked on its ugly new home. To most, these stickers are a nuisance, an inconveniently placed speed bump. But if you take the time to look at them, they’re something else entirely. Art. Design. Typography. Personality. Fruit stickers hold them all, and it wasn’t until we discovered @Fruit_stickers that we became so acutely aware of this under-appreciated art form.

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https://www.bonappetit.com/story/fruit-stickers

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Go to the closest trash can. Examine the exterior and the crusty walls inside. Search the folds of shiny, black garbage bag hanging over the edge. Somewhere in there hangs a fruit sticker, ripped off of an apple or banana and smacked on its ugly new home. To most, these stickers are a nuisance, an inconveniently placed speed bump. But if you take the time to look at them, they're something else entirely. Art. Design. Typography. Personality. Fruit stickers hold them all, and it wasn't until we discovered @Fruit_stickers that we became so acutely aware of this under-appreciated art form.

@Fruit_stickers is an Instagram account run by British graphic designer Kelly Angood, who collects fruit stickers from around the world, peels them off of their respective fruits, scans them, and posts them on Instagram. She's posted over 700 so far. It's a collection of brilliant illustrations and graphic design. And above all, it's really fun. Fruit Stickers is my favorite Instagram account right now, and that's coming from someone who spends way too much time on Instagram.

"Collecting fruit stickers was never intentional," says Angood, who currently designs, manufactures, and distributes DIY analogue pinhole cameras (Yes, another niche interest). "For years I just stuck them inside pages in notebooks. Maybe it was because I liked the designs, maybe it felt like a little reward system for eating fruit. I wasn't doing it consciously." She collects them on trips abroad or at her local market, and others she receives as donations, including a collection of stickers from the 1960s - 1980s she received last year from an American woman.

We asked Angood to share her 24 favorite fruit stickers, and her thoughts on what makes them more likely to be hanging in a design museum than inside a trashcan:

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Fruit Stickers Are Better Art Than Anything Andy Warhol Ever Did

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Fruit Stickers is our new favorite Instagram account. It's dedicating to the tiny pieces of art on fruit stickers, the ones most of us throw away without even thinking.

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Circular Economy

StixFresh has created a natural sticker to make fruit last longer, in an effort to reduce food waste. Image: StixFresh

Senior Writer, Formative Content

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China has the most estimated food waste per year. Image: Statista

StixFresh stickers are said to increase the shelf life of fruit such as mangoes by up to two weeks. Image: StixFresh

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This simple solution will keep fruit fresh for longer - and help avoid food waste

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Circular Economy StixFresh has created a natural sticker to make fruit last longer, in an effort to reduce food waste. Image: StixFresh Senior Writer, Formative Content Stay up to date: Circular Economy Follow China has the most estimated food waste per year.

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In a recent exhibition in Sydney, Rafferty lined up his vast collection of boxes according to the latitude of origin of their former fruit inhabitants, creating a graphical, botanical map of Australia.

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In a recent exhibition in Sydney, Rafferty lined up his vast collection of boxes according to the latitude of origin of their former fruit inhabitants, creating a graphical, botanical map of Australia.

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 The Surprising, Overlooked Artistry of Fruit StickersKelly Angood curates an online museum of little, adhesive marvels. 

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 The Surprising, Overlooked Artistry of Fruit StickersKelly Angood curates an online museum of little, adhesive marvels. 

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“The only way is a tiny sticker that is associated with being a sign of quality and consistency within that grower.”

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Some of the world's best, most surprising graphic design can be found in one of the most mundane places: your local supermarket. Nestled among pyramids of plums and bagged bunches of bananas are tiny works of art. Welcome to the world of fruit stickers. In much of the world, especially in large American supermarkets and chain stores such as Walmart, the stickers simply advertise somewhat ubiquitous brands-think Chiquita or Dole. But in the United Kingdom (and other places), smaller greengrocers carry produce plastered with tiny, hyperlocal stickers that bear the logos and art of smaller farms, growers, and distributors. When most people encounter these stickers, it's only to peel them off and try, often unsuccessfully, to flick them into the trash. But Kelly Angood sees something else in them, and peels them carefully off before adding them to her collection of hundreds-spanning countries, decades, and a dizzying variety of fruit.

Angood, who works as a graphic designer in London, started collecting fruit stickers in the 1990s, on sort of a whim. She stuck the stickers all over when she found them, on the backs of notebooks or on whatever flat item she happened to have on her. As the years passed, her collection sprawled. She began putting her finds neatly on white printer paper, dozens of stickers per sheet, and soon had enough that she decided to start posting the best on Instagram. @Fruit_stickers hosts a beautifully curated selection of close-ups. She frames each against a flat white background, more like an art gallery than where you might encounter these easily overlooked marvels of design in the wild.

The first person to put stickers on fruit on a commercial scale was Tom Mathison, a produce farmer in Washington, according to his obituary in Produce Processing, an industry trade magazine. He put stickers on his apples to brand them with the name of his farm, and eventually added a ladybug logo to signal their organic origin. He saw them as a potential marketing strategy for grocers and growers, as a way to communicate the quality of a piece of fruit. "You've got a banana, an apple, an orange. As a consumer, how are you supposed to tell the difference from one to another?" Angood says. "The only way is a tiny sticker that is associated with being a sign of quality and consistency within that grower."

Now, produce stickers-not just for fruit any more-are commonplace worldwide. In several countries, they are highly regulated to help supermarkets control inventory and consumers learn more about their choices. This regulation exists in the form of numbered PLU codes, set by the International Federation of Produce Standards. Growers use PLU codes in the United Kingdom, the United States, Chile, Canada, Australia, Norway, and New Zealand, under the same standard set of rules. If a PLU code begins with a 9, for example, the fruit is organically grown. If it begins with a 48 or 49, it indicates herbs. The codes make for a more seamless shopping experience, but they occupy valuable real estate that could have otherwise gone toward design. As a result, the most aesthetically appealing fruit stickers, Angood explains, are often the ones that come from the least regulated places. But while the PLU system governs stickers within the countries that use it, fruit moves elsewhere around the world in more wanton ways, so produce sections anywhere can carry purely decorative stickers or fruit that goes completely sticker-less.

Angood's collection is dominated by fruit you can buy for sale in London-which is to say, the stickers come from all over the world, since very few exciting fruits grow naturally in Britain. She picks up any stickers that catch her eye aesthetically, perhaps with an unusual color combination or flashy typography. She rarely actually buys the fruit attached to the sticker, but she says vendors never seem to mind, as one stickerless fruit has little effect on the store's ability to sell produce. "I lived next to a greengrocer, and they knew the score," Angood says. "It's more awkward to ask." She has never managed to successfully trace the designer of any of sticker she's collected, but then again, there are probably an awful lot of them.

In the world of fruit stickers, according to Angood, citrus is one of the best canvases. Her favorites are the green stickers she finds often on tangerines while on vacation in Valencia, Spain, that resemble the fruit's leaves. "It's almost alluding to its natural state," Angood says, adding that the stickers typically bear the grower's name on the leaf. She finds these more memorable, almost because they take the unusual advertising tack of trying to blend in.

Other stickers are arguably less artistic and certainly less subtle. Take the banana, in Angood's experience the fruit most frequently anthropomorphized in advertising, including on stickers. Most ubiquitous is Dole's human-banana mascot Bobby Banana-often spotted on stickers leading an active lifestyle that includes soccer or basketball. Del Monte takes a similar tack, with a similarly anthropomorphized banana that loves volleyball, cycling, and open mics. The company also launched a series called "Bananimals," which consisted of animals with various body parts replaced by bananas. (You can probably imagine the Bananapus.) All of them appear on stickers, and Angood has most of them. "The Dole Bananimals ... a lot of them are very phallic," she says. "I'm like, 'Why have you got a penis for your hands?' It's obviously supposed to be a banana, but it's really quite ridiculous."

Angood has noticed other, more inscrutable regional trends that she can't quite explain. Many of the stickers she's collected from growers in South America, for example, feature the image of a young child, likely from the grower's family. "They take a picture of their youngest child and put it on fruit," Angood says. "One time I saw one that wasn't a child but a family dog." In another strange trend, some growers mimic the design of a well-known brand to draw attention, such as a rip-off Rolex logo used on bananas in the Philippines. Angood's isn't the only Instagram out there that chronicles the surprising artistry of fruit packaging. Australian artist Sean Rafferty runs @cartonographer, dedicated to the cardboard crates used for fruit and vegetables in Australia. In a recent exhibition in Sydney, Rafferty lined up his vast collection of boxes according to the latitude of origin of their former fruit inhabitants, creating a graphical, botanical map of Australia.

Two decades into her collecting, Angood has learned that several of the growers whose stickers she saved have since gone out of business. And as her Instagram presence grows, people have begun sending her stickers of their own so she can post them. An American woman sent Angood a collection of stickers from the 1960s through the 1980s. Now, Angood can't help but spot the stickers wherever she goes. "I have my eyes peeled constantly," she says. "I can spot a fruit sticker on the street. It's become part of the way I live my life."

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The Surprising, Overlooked Artistry of Fruit Stickers

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Some of the world's best, most surprising graphic design can be found in one of the most mundane places: your local supermarket. Nestled among pyramids of plums and bagged bunches of bananas are tiny works of art. Welcome to the world of fruit stickers.

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Carmen Medaglia's battle against waste and injustice in Italy's Land of Fires - LifeGate

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In Italy's Land of Fires between Naples and Caserta, activists like Carmen Medaglia are fighting to promote new ways of managing waste.

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More recently, the Italian environmental NGO Legambiente and author Roberto Saviano changed its moniker to "land of fire", a reference to the common practice of burning rubbish in the area.

Ancient Romans used to call the region Campania felix (happy Campania) because of the land's fertility. Now it is depicted by the media as an open-sky landfill.

But local farmers are saying that this depiction has caused almost as much damage as the dumping, and are now on a mission to rehabilitate the image of their once world-renowned products.

For decades, parts of Campania have been used for the illegal dumping, burning and disposal of toxic waste, under the management of the local mafia, the Camorra.

Legambiente estimates that in the last 22 years, over 410,000 trucks coming from northern Italy and from abroad have illegally disposed some ten million tonnes of toxic waste in the region, mainly residues from medical products, paints, used tyres, dioxin and allegedly even nuclear waste.

The Italian National Health Institute has recorded a higher incidence of some types of cancer in the area when compared to the national average, specifically liver cancer, bladder cancer and cancer of the central nervous system.

In February, the Italian government passed a decree law which foresees a full mapping of the contaminated land, stricter controls on the agricultural products and free screening for all citizens of the 81 municipalities in the "land of fire".
Economy at risk
But it's not only the health of Campania's citizens that is at risk: the local economy has been affected, with a significant reduction in the export of local products such as buffalo mozzarella or San Marzano tomatoes.

The Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) estimates that, in 2013 alone, four out of ten farmers in the region lost their job because of the media storm caused by the toxic waste scandal.

But local trade unionists say the media has exaggerated the health threat posed by the dumping.

"It's not an emergency", says Camilla Bernabei, the Secretary General of CGIL Caserta in Campania region. "Figures have proved that only 2 per cent of the land has been contaminated."

Similarly, Beniamino Daniele, spokesperson of Coldiretti Campania, an association representing the agricultural workers in the area told Equal Times: "We have a proven-track record of super-healthy and safe products, as all the controls that have been made over the time have demonstrated.

"Even those products coming from the fields close to the notorious Giuliano rubbish dump, when analysed, have reported no sign of dangerous pollutants."

However, that hasn't stopped his members from feeling the full impact of the scandal.

"Because of what has been said about the so-called "land of fire", our agriculture has come to a halt, as not only have exports to the rest of Italy stopped, but also to foreign countries."

As early as 2008, South Korea, Japan and France imposed a ban on buffalo mozzarella because of the high level of dioxin found in some milk samples. The ban was later lifted after it was acknowledged that the mozzarella was fit for human consumption.

"This is an issue that affects the Italian economy as a whole" adds Daniele. "I was talking to a bag producer and he said that his trade was heavily affected as well, even if bags are not eaten."

According to Alessandro Mastrocinque, president of another farmers' organisation, CIA Campania, "only in 60 of the 58,000 acres that have been checked was a significant presence of pollutants detected.

"Some media have instrumentally over-exaggerated the scope of the problem, and this has caused huge damage to our sales. It's now time to emphasise the top quality of our products and our organisation calls on the Campania region to help us promote the excellence of our land."
Rebranding the infamous
The letters 'NCO' are infamous in Italy. They stand for Nuova Camorra Organizzata, or New Organised Camorra in English, one of the most powerful criminal organisations in and around Naples in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Now, some groups of small farmers in the region have decided to reuse the acronym to refer to their cooperatives which are slowly trying to rebuild the image of the area and to save jobs and local products.

Giuliano Ciano is the president of a consortium named New Organised Cooperation. "Our principle is that social economy is an antidote to criminal economy," he explained to Equal Times.

"That is why we have invested in community-supported agriculture. What we are trying to spark is a bottom-up revolution, empowering the small farmers and producing quality organic crops. In this respect we've promoted the initiative 'Facciamo un pacco alla Camorra' (which translate roughly as "Let's give a gift to the Camorra"), whereby we sell products across Italy that come from the confiscated lands which once belonged to the criminal gangs."

The consortium now owns 25 acres of land, involves 41 partners, employs some 120 people - among whom there are many disadvantaged workers, either with disabilities or with a difficult/criminal background - and has an aggregated turnover of €5 million (US$ 6.9 million) a year.

"In Italy," says Ciano, "some 150 million tonnes of toxic waste have been disposed of in the last decades. Of those, only 10 to 15 million tonnes are thought to have been dumped in the Campania region. This gives you an idea of the real dimension of the problem, which is not a local one, but something that involves the whole country.

"We are only the tip of the iceberg."

And Peppe Pagano, another user of the NCO initials, who created a cooperative of restaurants called New Organised Cuisine, told Equal Times: "We want a public health certification to testify that the Campania products are currently the most controlled worldwide."

Pagano says that a new Campania can be born out of the environmental damage wrought on the old one:

"We have solutions for the contaminated lands: there are plants such as willow trees, poplars and hemp that work as natural depollutants. We could use such plants to help clean up the 'land of fire'".

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Italian farmers reclaim the "land of fire"

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In 2004, a 1200 km2 area in the Italian province of Campania, comprising the municipalities of Acerra, Nola and Marigliano, was named the "triangle of death" by the medical magazine Lancet due to its high incidence of cancer-related deaths.

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Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy (TV Series 2021– ) - IMDb

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Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy: With Stanley Tucci, Felicity Blunt, Tess Masazza, Massimo Bottura. Stanley Tucci travels across Italy to discover the secrets and delights of the country’s regional cuisines.

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The Mafia Is Trashing Italy... Literally (Part 2)

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The Mafia Is Trashing Italy... Literally (Part 1)

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Questa non è una catena di Sant Antonio, non è una cazzata, non è un tantra, non è un messaggio di pace, ne una preghiera. Chiedo un pizz...

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Rai 3 TGR Campania Terra dei Fuochi Droni Regione

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Quando ho dato vita a questo blog il fenomeno era già noto a pochi addetti ai lavori, ma per anni era stato ampiamente sottovalutato da tutti. Con questa pagina ho provato che non era confinato nei soli Comuni di Giugliano-Villaricca-Qualiano, bensì rappresentava un vero e proprio "sistema criminale" su vasta scala ben più esteso e grave di quanto erroneamente descritto in precedenza.

La pratica criminale di smaltire o riciclare i rifiuti speciali bruciandoli, oramai va avanti da molti, troppi anni. Lo abbiamo documentato tutti i giorni con foto e video, denunciando questo scempio a ogni istituzione politica e giudiziaria. Sono trascorsi diversi anni. Tuttavia, senza che nulla sia realmente cambiato! Inizia così, un'altra stagione di roghi, fumi tossici e di chissà quanti altri veleni. Si continua come se nulla fosse. Sempre negli stessi luoghi. Spesso sentiamo parlare di cancro, ma a cosa serve curare i tumori o donare soldi alla ricerca, se nessuno si occupa concretamente della nostra prevenzione primaria?

Dopo anni e anni di promesse sul risanamento del territorio, cosa è cambiato?

Basta, ci stanno avvelenando!

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La pratica criminale di smaltire o riciclare i rifiuti speciali bruciandoli, oramai va avanti da molti, troppi anni. Lo abbiamo documentato tutti i giorni con foto e video, denunciando questo scempio a ogni istituzione politica e giudiziaria. Sono trascorsi diversi anni. Tuttavia, senza che nulla sia realmente cambiato!

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Since theenforcement of waste control regulations remains weak, it is desirable that legislators and institutionsmake stronger efforts to increase public participation in environmental decision-making (e.g., publichearings for environmental impact assessments) and empower citizens by giving them greater access topollution information. Indeed, the role of activists and victims has been particularly important to push theItalian legislation to issue more stringent laws. 

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Since theenforcement of waste control regulations remains weak, it is desirable that legislators and institutionsmake stronger efforts to increase public participation in environmental decision-making (e.g., publichearings for environmental impact assessments) and empower citizens by giving them greater access topollution information. Indeed, the role of activists and victims has been particularly important to push theItalian legislation to issue more stringent laws. 

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The first famous informer wasNunzio Perrella, brother of a powerful boss of a neighbourhood in Naples. In 1992 he declared that the“waste is gold”, indicating why organized crime has been attracting increasing interest in the wastebusiness, since 1988. Collaborating with prosecutors, he offered a first map of the main eco-criminals inCampania and the connections they had with enterprises in northern Italy, which needed the help oforganized crime to get rid of the waste they produced

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The first famous informer wasNunzio Perrella, brother of a powerful boss of a neighbourhood in Naples. In 1992 he declared that the“waste is gold”, indicating why organized crime has been attracting increasing interest in the wastebusiness, since 1988. Collaborating with prosecutors, he offered a first map of the main eco-criminals inCampania and the connections they had with enterprises in northern Italy, which needed the help oforganized crime to get rid of the waste they produced

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In recent years the increase in the number of people with cancer in the territories of Casal di Principe, Caivano, Giugliano and Acerra has generated a great anger among the population. Since 1980 tons of waste from every part of Italy have been spilled in the legal and illegal landfills in Campania. The situation is so serious that it has been likened to the plague of 1600.
In Casal di Principe there were too many people to know what Carmine Schiavone (now Camorra regretted) had done with the clan leader Francesco Schiavone called "Sandokan", and the rest of the criminal group: they illegally buried toxic waste in exchange of money by North Italy industries. Today, in Casal di Principe and in the countries included in the so-called death triangle, people seem to want to fight against the crime that has ruined the land that once was called "Felix". Despite the approval by the senate of the decree law on environmental emergency in the Land of fires (February 5, 2014), no real action has been started for the remediation of contaminated territories.

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In recent years the increase in the number of people with cancer in the territories of Casal di Principe, Caivano, Giugliano and Acerra has generated a great anger among the population. Since 1980 tons of waste from every part of Italy have been spilled in the legal and illegal landfills in Campania.

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The latest news and original investigations on climate change and the environment, from Greenpeace UK’s award-winning journalism unit

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How the Mob Turned Southern Italy into a Toxic Wasteland

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Campania Felix has become the "Land of Fires," as it is popularly known. When people travel here, they see continual columns of smoke and flames, signs of the garbage that is torched in the countryside.

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ROME-The arrest of ecomafia don Cipriano "Garbage King" Chianese offers hope to the mob-ravaged "Land of Fires" area, Italy watchers say. Chianese, nicknamed the "King of Garbage", is said be the major boss behind the "ecomafia" garbage-trafficking wing of the Casalesi clan of the Camorra. Police allege that he has trafficked illegal waste in the Naples area and has also extorted quotas and the management of the transportation company Mary Trans.

Chianese had been serving a house arrest sentence for a previous indictment in an ongoing trial related to poisoning land and water in Naples, deemed an "environmental disaster", but was brought to jail on Tuesday.

According to investigators, Chianese had created and directed the illicit traffic of garbage in the entire region, though specifically the area between Naples and Caserta, nicknamed "Terra dei Fuochi" or "Land of Fires" due to its critical environmental condition.

The arrest of Chianese comes following a law which was passed earlier this month that made the combustion of garbage without authorisation illegal and mandated that the lands are inspected within 150 days. The new law focuses on the Campania region, and most especially the "Land of Fires".

At least 6,000 illegal waste fires were reported in Campania between January 2012 and August 2013, according to environmental group Legambiente. Now the Italian government is working to curb that number.

"For the first time national institutions are dealing with the emergency in the 'Terra Dei Fuochi'," said Prime Minister Enrico Letta.

"Severe penalties will be declared for those who violate the law," said president of Campania Region Council, Paolo Romano, who called the law a "positive turning point" for the region.

The new law is important because Naples has been known to have issues with waste management since 1994, though the issue seemed to be resolved when two major landfills were opened in 2011. The problem, however, is that illegal waste dumping and combustion also affects the environment.

In a 2012 study conducted by the Superior Institution for Health, the organisation found that illegal garbage dug into the ground is a "measurable problem." The study highlighted that the health state of Campania's population is at an elevated danger in comparison to the rest of Italy, with a mortality rate at "two percent higher in contrast to the national average with peaks of 29% in some districts." Some have also attributed the garbage dumping to the increasing levels of cancer in Campania.

However, epidemiologist Fabrizio Bianchi has argued that the damaged areas are "extremely restricted." Further, Paolo Masi, the director of the Agrarian Department at the University Federico II in Naples, has stated that plants do not absorb everything that is in the soil. "Transmission of toxic substances from the soil into the plants is a diminished phenomenon," he said.

Nonetheless, Signor Bianchi has warned that "there should not be the assumption that agrarian products cultivated in those areas nearby do not contain harmful substances."

No matter how serious the consequences actually are, officials are working to fix the situation and prevent a worse problem in the future.

Don Patricello, a priest who has become the symbol of the revolution in the "Land of the Fires", hopes for "laws able to stop the phenomenon of the illicit deposit of garbage."

Many officials believe the new anti-combustion law will do just that.

"It will allow us to better confront the emergency reclamations, to increase the level of legality, and to enforce action against the ' ecomafia ' and the clans that have enriched themselves through the illegal disposal of garbage," said Ermete Realacci, the president of the Environmental Commission of the House.

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Ecomafia arrest inspires "Land of Fires"

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ROME-The arrest of ecomafia don Cipriano "Garbage King" Chianese offers hope to the mob-ravaged "Land of Fires" area, Italy watchers say. Chianese, nicknamed the "King of Garbage", is said be the major boss behind the "ecomafia" garbage-trafficking wing of the Casalesi clan of the Camorra.

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Naturally, with only 9% of the world’s plastic waste being recycled via legal and controlled procedures, it is not just the soil that is adversely affected. It is estimated that about 4 to 12 million megatonnes of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, polluting the coasts, sea surface and seabed.

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Naturally, with only 9% of the world’s plastic waste being recycled via legal and controlled procedures, it is not just the soil that is adversely affected. It is estimated that about 4 to 12 million megatonnes of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, polluting the coasts, sea surface and seabed.

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https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0734242X20966250

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Environmental crime is the third-most lucrative criminal business in the world. Yet too often it is still treated like petty crime. Activists hope new EU legislation may soon change that.

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Environmental crime is the third-most lucrative criminal business in the world. Yet too often it is still treated like petty crime. Activists hope new EU legislation may soon change that.

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Environmental crime is the third-most lucrative criminal business in the world. Yet too often it is still treated like petty crime. Activists hope new EU legislation may soon change that.

Sasa Braun has seen a lot in the 28 years he has worked as an investigator. But it's the past six years as a criminal intelligence officer with Interpol's environmental security program that have shocked him the most.

"The brutality and profit margins in the area of environmental crime are almost unimaginable. Cartels have taken over entire sectors of illegal mining, the timber trade and waste disposal," he said at a recent press conference, held together with German politicians.

Braun listed examples. Villages in Peru that had resisted deforestation efforts had been razed to the ground by criminal gangs in retribution, he said, while illegal fishing fleets had thrown crew overboard to avoid having to pay them.

And much of the timber and fish acquired through illegal means ended up in Germany, he said.

Environmental crime has many faces and includes the illegal widelife trade, illegal logging, illegal waste disposal and the illegal discharge of pollutants into the atmosphere, water or soil.

It is a lucrative business for transnational crime networks. Illegal waste trafficking, for example, accounts for $10 to 12 billion (€10.28 to 12.34 billion) annually, according to 2016 figures from the United Nations Environment Program.

Criminal networks save on the costs of proper disposal and obtaining permits. For some crime networks, the profits from waste management are so huge that it has become more interesting than drug trafficking.

Is wood the new gold?

The profits from illegal logging have also grown. Well-seasoned tropical hardwood, which is used to build yachts, for example, is increasingly rare and demand is high.

Katharina Lang, project manager for forest crime at the German branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said that consumers could never be certain if the wood in a product they had bought had been acquired through legal means.

According to a 2021 study by the German Association of Engineers (VDI), illegal logging accounts for 30% of activities in the global forestry sector. This figure can rise to almost 90% in countries that produce tropical timber.

German timber regulations call for a certificate of origin, but labeling fraud is frequent, as WWF has demonstrated many times. For example, wood might be labeled as being hardwood from Vietnam but actually it might be low-grade waste wood. WWF Germany uses genetic and isotopic fingerprinting to verify the declared origin of wood.

Sasa Braun from Interpol says that cooperation with NGOs such as WWF is invaluable, but, he says, the activities of these organizations aren't always appreciated, particularly in countries where there is corruption at all levels.

Environmental crime is seen as petty crime

According to the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), environmental crime - the third-most lucrative area of crime worldwide after drug trafficking and counterfeit goods - generates profits of between $110 billion and $280 billion each year.

It is difficult to be more precise because there is an extremely high number of unreported cases. And it's not like nature can sue.

"This certainly also has to do with the fact that we speak of administrative offenses in the case of environmental crime. Cases of environmental crime often aren't uncovered at all. They are only discovered when deliberate and targeted controls are carried out," said Moritz Klose, head of the wildlife program in Germany and Europe for WWF. Even when such crimes are revealed, penalties tend to be light.

Experts seem to agree that there is also a problem of staff shortages, as well as possibly a lack of political will. "A few years ago in [the western German state of] North Rhine-Westphalia, we had an environmental crime unit in the Environment Ministry," explained Klose. "It was very successful. An experienced investigator and a public prosecutor worked together to coordinate on cases of environmental crime in North Rhine-Westphalia, advise the authorities and conduct some of the investigations themselves."

However, it was closed down "for political reasons," he told DW, saying that the state is now trying to reverse this decision.

The eastern German state of Brandenburg has had a special prosecutor's office for environmental crime for two years. However, people there also complain of staffing shortages. Experts say that Europe-wide operations centers are needed, with judges, public prosecutors, police and customs officers who have been trained in tackling environmental crime.

Sasa Braun of Interpol says that environmental crime has to be fought with the same tools, including undercover investigations, wiretaps and GPS tracking, as other serious crimes. "It is often still considered as petty crime and not as a crime against our future," he told DW.

Environmental crime profits can be higher than drug trade

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Activists put pressure on German justice minister

Some are hoping that new European legislation, to be introduced next year, will tighten compliance with EU environmental laws.

"Too often in Europe, there is no real penalty for environmental crime. Lawbreakers can go unpunished and there are too few incentives to observe the law," European Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius said last year. "We want to change that by proposing a new directive on environmental crime that will strengthen the environmental rule of law."

But Germany's leading environmental associations fear sanctions won't be as tough as they should be. In an open letter to German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann, they urged him to ensure that the EU adopts modern and effective legislation.

They also criticized Buschmann for advocating for lower maximum penalties for serious environmental crimes as well as for lowering fines that companies might be liable for.

Stephan Sina, a lawyer specializing in environmental law at the Berlin-based Ecologic Institute, told DW that other measures would be much more effective. "When it comes to sanctions, it is important that profits gained from a crime be systematically seized. That usually hits criminals harder than the actual penalty," he said.

Environmental advocates still have some time to make their case. The EU is only expected to adopt the new directive by the middle of next year.
This article was originally published in German.

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Environmental crime: Profit can be higher than drug trade - DW - 10/16/2022

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Environmental crime is the third-most lucrative criminal business in the world. Yet too often it is still treated like petty crime. Activists hope new EU legislation may soon change that. Sasa Braun has seen a lot in the 28 years he has worked as an investigator.

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Documentary breaks silence on environmental crime

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Environmental crime is currently one of the most profitable forms of criminal activity and it is no surprise that organised criminal groups are attracted to its high profit margins. (Banks et ah, 2008: 2) The industrialisation of societies continues to create an indelible human footprint with both immediate and long-term environmental consequences (White, 2010). It is a footprint that represents rapid human activity and with it has come new commercial opportunities, not only for global businesses, but also for organised criminal networks. Both the acceleration and byproducts of global trade have created new markets as well as underground economies. As the opening quotation from the Environmental Investigation Agency suggests, the 'environment' is big business for organised crime. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), for example, estimates that organised crime syndicates earn between US$20-30 billion from environmental crimes (Clarke, 2011, UNEP, 2005). Such earnings come at substantial social, economic and environmental expense for communities, their livelihoods and habitats. Indeed, organised environmental crime is identified by the UN as a key factor in the impoverishment, displacement and violent conflicts experienced by millions of people, notably in developing societies (UNODC, 2009). The theft of biodiversity and the demise of animal species and habitats have resulted not only in financial loss but the increase of 'environmental refugees', people dislocated and forced to migrate due to loss of livelihoods. Between 1950 and 2000, 80 per cent of all armed conflicts occurred in areas with 'threatened species'. Hence, political unrest and armed conflict provide both the conditions and impetus for organised environmental crime that result in species decline and human dislocation (Humphreys and Smith, 2011). This chapter will explore the links between organised crime and the environment, and examine the regulatory and environmentalist responses to this growing issue of global concern.

Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Environmental crime is currently one of the most profitable forms of criminal activity and it is no surprise that organised criminal groups are attracted to its high profit margins. (Banks et ah, 2008: 2) The industrialisation of societies continues to create an...

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Report: Pollution crime is highly profitable, organized and harming the planet

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Throughout a series of global law enforcement operations that INTERPOL has coordinated against pollution crime in recent years, a key observation has emerged - that transnational organized crime was likely involved in a number of cases. The exact nature and implications of organized crime groups' role in pollution crime on a global level, however, has not been clear enough.

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The real face of pollution crimePollution crime, the report concludes, is often an organized crime, conducted with innovative, adaptive and sophisticated methods, but does not always take the form one might expect. While some cases did involve centralized mafia or gang-style criminal groups, the large majority of suspects were businessmen and women operating under the cover of a legitimate firm, or as a network of individual brokers.This de-centralized structure reflects the way that much cross-border business is done, involving global value chains in which services are regularly subcontracted across a largely ‘horizontal’ network of economic actors.Some of the legitimate companies in these networks shift towards illegal business practices and commit pollution offences to increase their profit margins, with or without the knowledge of other companies linked to them.The picture that emerges is one where different forms of pollution crime often coexist and blend with legitimate operators. This does not, however, make the crime any less organized, or any less damaging.

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The real face of pollution crimePollution crime, the report concludes, is often an organized crime, conducted with innovative, adaptive and sophisticated methods, but does not always take the form one might expect. While some cases did involve centralized mafia or gang-style criminal groups, the large majority of suspects were businessmen and women operating under the cover of a legitimate firm, or as a network of individual brokers.This de-centralized structure reflects the way that much cross-border business is done, involving global value chains in which services are regularly subcontracted across a largely ‘horizontal’ network of economic actors.Some of the legitimate companies in these networks shift towards illegal business practices and commit pollution offences to increase their profit margins, with or without the knowledge of other companies linked to them.The picture that emerges is one where different forms of pollution crime often coexist and blend with legitimate operators. This does not, however, make the crime any less organized, or any less damaging.

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Environmental crime third most profitable ‘business’ in the world

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The third-most lucrative form of crime in the world after narcotics trafficking and counterfeit products, according to the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), generates between $110 billion and $280 billion in earnings annually. More specificity is challenging due to the…

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Former FBI Agent Explains Criminal Profiling | Tradecraft | WIRED

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What to ask yourself before you consume true crime | Lindsey A. Sherrill | TEDxWilsonPark

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The Truth About True Crime | G.W Schulz | TEDxUTulsa

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Crime and Lots of Punishment | Josh Spickler | TEDxMemphis