Saviano says recession has boosted organized crime

Nov 16, 2009, 15:59 GMT

   Munich - The recession has boosted organized crime throughout Europe, Italian writer Roberto Saviano, 30, said Monday.

Speaking in Munich, where he was to receive a German booksellers' prize for intellectual courage in the evening, the author of the book Gomorrah said, 'In Italy, business based around organized crime is the most important.'

   'The recession has been a gift to organized crime,' he said, adding that even officials would concede that the Italian state obtained annual revenues of 100 billion euros through the existence of crime gangs.

'In a recession, those revenues become more vital than ever,' said Saviano, who is on the run from the Camorra organized crime syndicates of his native Naples and requires constant police protection.

Gomorrah, his expose of the Camorra, has sold 4 million copies worldwide and has been made into a film. His latest book, a fictionalized account of crime, is entitled The Opposite of Death.

In an interview before he was to receive the 10,000-euro (15,000-dollar) annual Geschwister Scholl Prize, he said the award showed people outside were concerned about organized crime.

'That is a cause for hope,' he said.

Saviano called for the European Union nations to harmonize their anti-gang laws. In particular, Italy, Germany, Spain and the Eastern European nations should cooperate to monitor criminals and their money transactions.

The prize is named after two German students, siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, who printed and distributed leaflets criticizing the Nazis in 1943 and were executed.

The award is jointly managed by the state of Bavaria and the state federation of booksellers and publishers. Judges said he was picked because he had had the courage to write what no one else dared say.