Editor 's note : The staff at CNN.com has recently been intrigued by the journalism of VICE , an independent media company and Web site based in Brooklyn , New York . VBS.TV is Vice 's broadband television network . The reports , which are produced solely by VICE , reflect a very transparent approach to journalism , where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process . We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers . Viewer discretion advised . Brooklyn , New York ( VBS.TV ) -- Recently , VBS headed to Naples , the capital of the Campania region in southern Italy , to shoot two documentaries about the Camorra , the most powerful but least understood of the Italian crime cartels . One piece was about the peculiar world of the Camorra 's homegrown Neapolitan pop stars , known as Neomelodics . The other , excerpted here , focused on the environmental emergency brought on by the Camorra 's manipulation of garbage disposal in the region . Each proved to be a strange and infuriating experience . The daytime hours were spent visiting housing blocks where every family had reported at least one case of cancer because of illegal toxic waste dumps behind their homes . Our evenings , however , were spent at town square celebrations sponsored by the Camorra two blocks away and attended by the same families we had met earlier that day . The Camorra , it was suddenly clear , was dumping toxic waste in people 's backyards and then hosting Neomelodic pop concerts in their front yards . See the rest of Toxic : Napoli at VBS.TV . Today , the Camorra 's Naples is Italy on steroids , and it 's the result of a marriage of convenience between two powerful Italian forces . Neapolitans we met were , on the one hand , fed up with the garbage situation . On the other , very few had any interest in pointing fingers at the Camorra . The Gerlando family is a prime example . On one of the last days of our shoot , we spent an afternoon with sheep farmers Patrizia and Mario Gerlando at their home in the Campanian countryside . The Gerlandos were forced to leave their home in the town of Acerra ( a suburb of Naples ) because all of their sheep were mutating and dying due to the high levels of dioxin in the pastures where they grazed . Despite Acerra being the most well-documented case of the Camorra 's involvement in Campania 's environmental crisis , after the cameras were packed away , Mario and Patrizia told us that the Camorra had nothing to do with anything and that it would take someone like Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to come fix the situation .
VBS finds documenting powerful Italian crime cartel `` strange , infuriating '' Cartel 's control of garbage disposal has resulted in environmental crisis . The mafia is also involved with the illegal trade of drugs and arms.