By RACHEL DONADIO


“If they wanted to kill me, they’d kill me, with or without an escort here or abroad.”


CASERTA, Italy - In Italy, it is called the “Saviano effect,” the intense national focus on the Camorra elicited by Roberto Saviano’s 2006 best seller, “Gomorrah,” which traced the rise of the Campania region’s violent and economically mighty clans.

But while Mr.Saviano, 29, has become well-known - appearing regularly in the Italian news media even after death threats forced him into hiding - others have spent years quietly covering the same subject.

One of the most respected is Rosaria Capacchione, a reporter for Il Mattino, a daily newspaper in Caserta, outside Naples, who since the mid-1980s has reported on the short lives, violent deaths and intricate finances of the members of the Camorra’s ruling families, particularly the Casalesi, as those from the town of Castel di Principe are known.

Recently, that has led to another kind of“Saviano effect.”In March, Ms.Capacchione was given a police escort after a Camorra defendant in a high-profile trial issued a death threat against her.

Ms.Capacchione hates having a police escort.“I lost all the freedom I had,”she said glumly in a recent interview.

“The funny thing is, I’ve had much more serious and clear and evident threats over the years. But there wasn’t the Saviano phenomenon,”she said.“The rest of the world didn’t know that the Camorra or the Casalesi existed,” she said.

Under the Camorra in recent decades the Campania region, which surrounds Naples, has become the hub of an international criminal web involving drug trafficking, illegal waste dumping, public works fraud and money laundering through semi-legitimate businesses like supermarkets and gaming parlors.

In her first book,“The Gold of the Camorra,”which was published in October and made the Italian bestseller lists , Ms.Capacchione tracks the careers of four of the Casalesi’s most brilliant criminal minds.

Using trial transcripts and her own reporting, she shows how the bosses profited from contracts to build a high-speed train to Naples, through construction and through cartels that distribute sugar and other basic commodities to Campania.

Ms.Capacchione, 48, was born and raised in Caserta and still lives there today. Reserved and at times sardonic, she sometimes smiles and occasionally laughs. But to be in Ms.Capacchione’s presence is to absorb an intensity - and fatalism - born from years spent covering a violent, seemingly intractable conflict.

Being on the front lines has its risks. She knows that her police escort will only protect her so much.“If they wanted to kill me, they’d kill me, with or without an escort here or abroad,”she said.

In the land of the Camorra, there is a blurry line between legality and illegality. It is not uncommon to find organized crime figures with relatives in public office, law enforcement or other state operations like health care, Ms.Capacchione said.

While the Camorra may rely less on politicians today, she said politicians still relied on the Camorra to deliver votes. And it is hard for citizens to distinguish between criminals and noncriminals. “You never know,”Ms.Capacchione said.“Or even worse, you do know.”

A study last year found that organized crime was the largest segment of the Italian economy, accounting for 7 percent of Italy’s gross domestic product, or $127 billion a year.

So what’s the solution?“I don’t know,”Ms.Capacchione said.“It’s a complex problem.”

After all that she has seen, what was her hardest day on the job- Here Ms.Capacchione pauses for a long time. Finally, she draws a breath.“It hasn’t come yet,”she answers.

But she has no intention of changing jobs.“No,”she said decisively.“My plan is to keep doing what I’ve always done.”And with that Ms.Cappachione walked to her office in the rain, two plainclothes policemen by her side.