In early March 2020, as Italy was being brought to its knees by Covid-19, protests broke out in many prisons across the country.

Some degenerated into actual riots. According to ongoing investigations, Italy’s various mafias appear to have played a major role in fomenting the chaos.

Months later, in October, fierce protests broke out on the streets of Naples too.

Clansmen of the Camorra, the powerful Naples mafia described in his books by the journalist Roberto Saviano, were among those who set fire to rubbish bins and threw stones at the police.

According to a recent report by the Italian anti-mafia investigation directorate (DIA), “criminal organisations have all the interest in fuelling episodes of urban disorder by exploiting the situation of economic hardship to turn it into social protests, especially in the south”.

Like other EU countries, Italy has suffered a severe economic crisis since the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic.

The country’s GDP fell by 8.9 percent in 2020. And mafias are tightening their grip on the Italian society and economy even more.