A former mafia boss has told Dateline the toxins were dumped illegally by the mob as part of a decades-long waste disposal scam.
“I was in charge of a vast empire of investments," said Carmine Schiavone, who’s turned informant and is risking his life to reveal what’s happened. “The clan pulled in around 10 billion lire a month.”
“Do you realise there are barrels of nuclear waste in the aquifers?"
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Up to 20 million tonnes of toxic industrial and chemical waste could be dumped there, with the poison now leaking into the environment.
It’s being blamed for a rise in cancer cases in local children - now double the national figure.
“She was a healthy child, happy and carefree,” says Imma Nasi of her daughter Mesia, who died at the age of four.
“It’s unacceptable that a parent should lose a child… for a child who was born healthy to get cancer, of course it makes you angry.”
But Schiavone claims the dumping was taking place with the full knowledge of corrupt senior officials.
“They’re the criminals, those people at high levels of politics and public service,” he says. “Why don’t they show regret and start talking once and for all? Because they can’t.”
Dateline asked the Italian government for a detailed response to the claims raised, but they declined to comment on any specific allegations.
Dateline broadcasts on SBS ONE, Tuesday at 9.30pm.
