IL MARE SIAMO NOI (The Sea is Us)

IL MARE SIAMO NOI (The Sea is Us)

: Reggio Calabria. Five-storey building with security screen doors and windows located on a hill overlooking the Strait of Messina. It was seized from Nocera Sebastiano and will be turned into the provincial headquarters of G.I.C.O., the Italian Guardia di Finanza Organized crime investigation group. After obtaining a derogation to an evacuation order due to Nocera’s serious health conditions, his wife and family took windows, lift and toilets away before freeing the building.

: Pignataro Maggiore (Caserta). Parrot seized from a a drug dealer in Naples. A 66 page-long file lists Mafia illicit activities related to animal exploitation. An investigation was carried out by AIDAA – the Italian Association for the Protection of Animals and the Environment – which collected data regarding activities involving Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta and Sacra Corona Unita.

: Mesagne (Brindisi). A farmhouse in the district called contrada Canali which once belonged to Carlo Cantanna, a Sacra Corona Unita boss, still in prison. It was seized in 1996, and is currently run by the “Cooperativa Terre di Puglia-Libera Terra”. The cooperative grows wheat, legumes, tomatoes, olives, artichokes and primarily wine on ten hectares of land. The farmhouse organizes Libera’s summer camps, training sessions and a new food processing lab project is on its way. On Opening Day, don Luigi Ciotti said: “We are declaring the State supremacy in the fight against organized crime and Mafia. From being exclusive assets in the hands of Mafia, they become shared assets by the whole community”.

: Marina di Gioiosa Jonica (RC). Interior of the villa belonging to Domenico Aquino, head of the gang bearing his name, currently, under tight security measures. All the Aquino family are horse lovers. This property will be converted into Carabinieri barracks.

: Maiano di Sessa Aurunca (Caserta). 17 hectares of land and property seized from the Moccia gang in 1994 were assigned permanently to the cooperative «Aldilà dei sogni» in 2011 for the establishment of a job placement center for disadvantaged groups often coming from forensic psychiatric hospitals, each with a personalized therapeutic project. Thanks to its strategic geographical position between the river and the sea, the cooperative is also trying to establish with other local agencies the first center for Paracanoe in Southern Italy, while an Educational Farm is already operational.

: Casal di Principe (Caserta). Villa seized from Francesco Schiavone, aka «Sandokan». It was assigned to the cooperative «La Forza del Silenzio» (the strength of silence) that established a social center for autistic people, and a laboratory for the preparation of gluten-free biscuits on the lower level.

: Gioia Tauro (Reggio Calabria). Delfino s.r.l. seized from Bruno Delfino, a company specializing in waste and metal scrap recycling, industrial and naval demolitions and vehicle dismantling. It is currently managed by two administrators, it has 11 employees and has a three million Euro yearly turnover. Confiscation is permanent.

: Orta di Atella (Caserta). Racetrack seized. The racetrack was rented out to a company called Dog’s town which is also taking care of three horses seized from Parisi. While waiting for the health authorization required to use the property, the racetrack has been heavily vandalized. Animal trafficking is the second largest criminal industry in the world, behind drugs and arms.

: Castel Volturno (Caserta). Pupetta Maresca was the first mafia woman belonging to the New Alfieri Family, on the forefront in the war against the Cutolo’s New Organized Crime Camorra. Her beach house was seized by the judiciary and assigned to the Jerry Masslo association. It has been turned into a social tailoring center for immigrant women survivors of human trafficking and has given them a real job, sewing Western style dresses on traditional African fabrics and prints. Its name has been changed and is now called Casa di Alice (Alice’s home).

: Reggio Calabria. Slot machines seized from Gioacchino Campolo, dubbed the ‘”King of Videopoker”. Involved in ‘Ndrangheta gang affiliation charges and sentenced to 18 years in 2011, Campolo, was responsible for a huge tax fraud through a network of tampered slot machines to increase his profits. More than 200 properties were confiscated in Reggio Calabria, Rome, Milan and Paris.

: Gioia Tauro (Reggio Calabria). A strategic harbor for ‘Ndrangheta’s illegal trafficking, especially drugs (particularly cocaine), as shown rom operation “New Bridge” carried out by the State Police between the US and Calabria. The local ‘Ndrangheta gangs asked for protection money amounting to $1.5 per barrel.

: Reggio Calabria. The Cinema Orchidea belongs to one of the properties confiscated from Gioacchino Campolo, dubbed the ‘”King of Videopoker”. Involved in ‘Ndrangheta gang affiliation charges and sentenced to 18 years in 2011, Campolo, was responsible for a huge tax fraud through a network of tampered slot machines to increase his profits. In two decades he had built up assets worth 400 million Euros. More than 200 properties were confiscated in Reggio Calabria, Rome, Milan and Paris. Campolo had a soft spot for art. He visited art galleries very often and he could rarely resist the temptation of adding a valuable piece of art to his private collection. Approximately 120 works of art, the most important art collection in Southern Italy, can now be seen by to the people, in a permanent exhibition in the Palazzo della Cultura in Reggio Calabria.

: ‘Ndrangheta bunker. Carabinieri’s archive

: ‘Ndrangheta bunker. Carabinieri’s archive

: ‘Ndrangheta bunker. Carabinieri’s archive

“Profit is organised crime’s raison d’être. Seeking it is the solution, but finding it is the real issue”.
(Pietro Grasso, former national anti-Mafia prosecutor)

Attacking assets represents the most effective means to fight Mafia organizations. The project named The Sea is Us developed from this, from the assets seized or confiscated from those organisations to investigate its roots, their view of the world and the connective tissue tying them to the life of an ordinary citizen.

This project follows the money.

Up until the years of Falcone and Borsellino, Cosa Nostra’s affairs fell entirely within traditional criminal activities; from Provenzano on the Mafia entrepreneurial management has changed, it has become more modern, almost pacific. A state of ostensible calm has made this danger become far more invasive causing devastating damage. The new Mafia property includes building yards, seized hospitals, homes, restaurant chains, renewable energy, arts, online gambling and reaches into the ordinary daily sectors. Such a chamaleonic strategy adapting to social, economic and technological developments, necessarily required adjusting to new investigation techniques.

Follow the money they used to say overseas. Money traces during the ‘30s led the US to arrest the boss Al Capone for tax evasion. But arresting is only a quick fix,and does not undermine the core of the organisation: its assets. That is why the Italian State started its war against the Mafia through confiscation of all its property and assets gained through diverse criminal activities.

The Law 109/96 (the Law on the social re-use of the assets confiscated from the Mafia) authorizes confiscation of properties gained through illegal activities to be used for civil society. What the Mafia has taken away from the State returns to the State through a kind of ethical cycle. Today the Italian Agency for Seized Assets controls over 13,000 properties worth over 40 Billion Euros. However, nearly 3,000 are in an extremely critical state, many have a mortgage on them and the new owners often find it difficult to relaunch their business.

I have been following the Mafia’s money and their assets for the past three years. Seized or confiscated assets. Reused or abandoned. I have chosen close frames to turn them into metaphors, to claim their beauty in the terrible chaos of the story they tell us and because I wanted to start from the detail. I want to analyse it, decompose it, put it close to a thousand other details. And then move away looking for an overall view to better understand the nature of everything. I will be using pictures which technically go from photojournalism to forensic photography, to the appropriation of the historical image, right up to landscape photography, portrait and still life. By mixing past and present, reality and fiction and the use of writing, I will build a kind of visual dossier of crime where every piece will be the cue and clue for the solution of the puzzle, although partial.
Fighting the Mafia is like fighting a sick part of our own body, because its true strength is not in the armed army, but in consensus, in that devious capacity of transforming the needs of society into promises and making it believe that everything is in its right and perfect place.

Photos by Massimo Mastrorillo
Texts by Pamela Piscicelli
Concept by Massimo Mastrorillo and Pamela Piscicelli/door

“Il profitto è la ragion d’essere del crimine organizzato. Cercarlo è la soluzione, ma trovarlo è il problema”.
(Pietro Grasso, ex procuratore nazionale antimafia)

L’aggressione al patrimonio rappresenta lo strumento più efficace di contrasto alle organizzazioni di stampo mafioso. Il progetto The Sea is Us muove da qui, dai beni sequestrati o confiscati a quelle organizzazioni, per indagarne le radici, la visione del mondo e il tessuto connettivo che le salda alla vita del cittadino qualunque.
Questo progetto segue i soldi.

Se fino agli anni di Falcone e Borsellino, gli affari di Cosa Nostra rientravano a pieno titolo nelle attività criminose tradizionali, da Provenzano in poi, la gestione delle attività imprenditoriali mafiose è cambiata, più moderna, quasi pacifica. Uno stato di calma apparente che rende il pericolo più invasivo e i danni devastanti. Le nuove terre di Mafia sono fatte di cantieri edili, ospedali sequestrati, case, catene di ristorazione, energie rinnovabili, arte, gioco telematico e si espandono nei più banali settori del quotidiano. Davanti a una strategia camaleontica capace di adeguarsi a qualsiasi evoluzione sociale, economica e tecnologica, s’imponeva un adeguamento degli strumenti d’indagine.

Follow the money dicevano Oltreoceano. La scia del denaro negli anni ’30 portò lo Stato Americano all’arresto del boss Al Capone per evasione fiscale. Ma un arresto è solo il tampone a un’emergenza, se non s’intacca il cuore dell’organizzazione: il patrimonio. Così lo Stato Italiano ha avviato la propria guerra alla Mafia mettendo in atto il sequestro e la confisca delle sue proprietà e dei suoi beni, acquisiti attraverso le più svariate attività criminali.

La legge 109/96 (Legge sul Riutilizzo dei Beni confiscati alla Mafia), autorizza la confisca delle proprietà acquisite attraverso attività illecite, allo scopo di destinarle alla comunità. In una sorta di circolo etico quello che la Mafia ha sottratto allo Stato, allo Stato ritorna a fini di utilità sociale. Oggi l’Agenzia nazionale per i beni confiscati controlla circa 13.000 beni per un valore che supera i 40 miliardi di euro. Tuttavia quasi 3.000 sono in condizioni di forte criticità, molti sono gravati da ipoteche e i nuovi gestori hanno spesso problemi a rilanciarne l’attività.

Da circa due anni seguo i soldi dei mafiosi, i loro beni. Sequestrati o confiscati. Riutilizzati o abbandonati. Scelgo inquadrature molto strette per trasformarli in metafore, per rivendicare la bellezza nello scempio delle storie che raccontano e perché voglio muovere dal particolare. Analizzarlo. Scomporlo. Accostarlo a mille altri particolari. E poi allontanarmi. Alla ricerca dello sguardo d’insieme. Per comprendere la natura del tutto. Utilizzerò immagini che tecnicamente vanno dal fotogiornalismo, alla fotografia forense, all’appropriazione dell’immagine storica, fino alla fotografia di paesaggio, il ritratto e lo still life. Costruirò, anche attraverso una mescolanza continua di passato e presente, realtà e fiction e l’utilizzo della scrittura, una sorta di dossier visivo del crimine in cui ogni pezzo servirà da spunto e indizio alla risoluzione, per quanto parziale, del puzzle.

La lotta alla Mafia è una lotta contro una parte malata del proprio corpo, perché la sua vera forza non sta nell’esercito armato, ma nel consenso, in quella subdola capacità di trasformare i bisogni di una società in promesse e di farle credere che ogni cosa sia al suo posto, perfetta.

Foto di Massimo Mastrorillo
Testi di Pamela Piscicelli
Concept di Massimo Mastrorillo and Pamela Piscicelli/door