Saviano: the mafia boosted eastern europe's economy

Roberto Saviano won the 2010 Europe Book Prize with his work “Beauty and the Inferno”, although it is the 2006 book “Gomorra” which gave him international fame as a writer on the mafia and an essayist. In this interview with euronews he extends the mafia theme from a local Southern Italian phenomenon to the European and world stage and explains how organised crime has become a political actor taking advantage of failed states and the economic crisis.Roberto Saviano, Europe Book Prize winner:“The economic crisis has created huge opportunities for the stronger mafias, the winners, whereas it has had a negative impact on those mafias which are weaker, the losers. But criminal organizations such as the Nigerians, the Russians, the Casalesi from Naples and the Corsicans represent cartels which have brought liquidity to the economy during the crisis, and thanks to that liquidity they have succeeded in many areas such as in big construction and the banking system.”