In 2013 Saviano and the Arnoldo Mondadori Editore publishing house were sentenced for plagiarism on appeal.
The Appeals Court of Naples recognized that some pages of Gomorrah (0.6% of the entire book) were the results of an illicit reproduction of some lines from two articles from local daily papers, Cronache di Napoli and Corriere di Caserta.
Therefore, it partially modified the sentence from the first-degree court in which the court had rejected the accusations made by the two newspapers and had, instead, condemned them to pay damages for having "abusively reproduced" two of Saviano's articles (this sentence was confirmed in the appeal).
In the appeal, the writer and Mondadori were ordered to jointly pay reparations for property and other damages of 60 thousand euros plus a portion of legal costs.
The writer appealed the ruling at the Court of Cassation, and the Supreme Court partially confirmed the sentence of the Appeals Court, but called for a reconsideration of the damages, evaluating 60 thousand euros to be an excessive sum for newspaper articles with a very limited readership.
The Supreme Court did not agree with Saviano's appeal, rejecting almost all of the findings and largely confirming the basic structure of the Appeals Court's sentence.

In September 2015, journalist Michael C. Moynihan wrote an article for The Daily Beast, criticizing ZeroZeroZero and accusing Saviano of having used sections of text, including from Wikipedia, without citing his sources.
In an article for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Saviano demonstrated how the passages from ZeroZeroZero and the presumed sources identified by Moynihan were manipulated in order to appear similar.
The English newspaper The Guardian reported on the controversy with an article entitled "Roberto Saviano dismisses plagiarism claims over latest book" in which Saviano says, "I'm not a journalist (or a reporter), but, rather, a writer, and I recount real facts."
Saviano adds that "Interpretations and theories have a provenance, not mere facts: those belong to all, to those who recount them and to those who read them, making them their own".

Among the various public personalities who have expressed their support of Roberto Saviano (Fabio Fazio, Chiara Valerio, Francesca Borri, Stefano Piedimonte), the then editor in chief of La Repubblica, Ezio Mauro, appeared in a video on the paper's website on September 28, 2015, to give his contribution to the "Saviano case."
He repeated that "the facts of the news are available to all" and spoke about the "typical iconoclasm toward famous people who have constructed success and visibility based on their own hard work and studies."
He continued by saying, "Saviano is paying for having an enormous following and, above all, for the fact that he hasn't remained comfortably in cultural obscurity".

Saviano on the Palmesano (a journalist who was fired by order of the Camorra) incident
Roberto Saviano was the first in Italy to take up the case of Enzo Palmesano, a journalist for the Corriere di Caserta (today called Cronache di Caserta) who was fired by order of the Camorra boss, Vincenzo Lubrano.
The case was verified in court with a verdict against Francesco Cascella, nephew-by-marriage of the boss who acted as an intermediary between the clan and the then director of the paper, Gianluigi Guarino, in order to remove the journalist from his post.

The ruling declares that the clan influenced the editorial policy of the paper, which is published by Gruppo Libra, the same company that charged Saviano with plagiarism (see "Plagiarism dispute" above) after he criticized the editorial policy of some of their local newspapers on several occasions: at the Mantova Festivaletteratura in 2008, in a special for the television show Che tempo che fa on March 25, 2009, and in the book La parola contro la camorra (in 2010).

Journalist and television host, Nadia Toffa, looked at the Palmesano case on the television program OpenSpace, interviewing Enzo Palmesano, Giovanni Conzo (the judge who oversaw the investigation), and Saviano.
In 2013 Saviano and the Arnoldo Mondadori Editore publishing house were sentenced for plagiarism on appeal. The Appeals Court of Naples recognized that some pages of Gomorrah (0.6% of the entire book) were the results of an illicit reproduction of some lines from two articles from local daily papers, Cronache di Napoli and Corriere di Caserta. Therefore, it partially modified the sentence from the first-degree court in which the court had rejected the accusations made by the two newspapers and had, instead, condemned them to pay damages for having "abusively reproduced" two of Saviano's articles (this sentence was confirmed in the appeal). In the appeal, the writer and Mondadori were ordered to jointly pay reparations for property and other damages of 60 thousand euros plus a portion of legal costs. The writer appealed the ruling at the Court of Cassation, and the Supreme Court partially confirmed the sentence of the Appeals Court, but called for a reconsideration of the damages, evaluating 60 thousand euros to be an excessive sum for newspaper articles with a very limited readership. The Supreme Court did not agree with Saviano's appeal, rejecting almost all of the findings and largely confirming the basic structure of the Appeals Court's sentence.
In September 2015, journalist Michael C. Moynihan wrote an article for The Daily Beast, criticizing ZeroZeroZero and accusing Saviano of having used sections of text, including from Wikipedia, without citing his sources. In an article for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Saviano demonstrated how the passages from ZeroZeroZero and the presumed sources identified by Moynihan were manipulated in order to appear similar. The English newspaper The Guardian reported on the controversy with an article entitled "Roberto Saviano dismisses plagiarism claims over latest book" in which Saviano says, "I'm not a journalist (or a reporter), but, rather, a writer, and I recount real facts." Saviano adds that "Interpretations and theories have a provenance, not mere facts: those belong to all, to those who recount them and to those who read them, making them their own".
Among the various public personalities who have expressed their support of Roberto Saviano (Fabio Fazio, Chiara Valerio, Francesca Borri, Stefano Piedimonte), the then editor in chief of La Repubblica, Ezio Mauro, appeared in a video on the paper's website on September 28, 2015, to give his contribution to the "Saviano case." He repeated that "the facts of the news are available to all" and spoke about the "typical iconoclasm toward famous people who have constructed success and visibility based on their own hard work and studies." He continued by saying, "Saviano is paying for having an enormous following and, above all, for the fact that he hasn't remained comfortably in cultural obscurity".
Saviano on the Palmesano (a journalist who was fired by order of the Camorra) incident
Roberto Saviano was the first in Italy to take up the case of Enzo Palmesano, a journalist for the Corriere di Caserta (today called Cronache di Caserta) who was fired by order of the Camorra boss, Vincenzo Lubrano. The case was verified in court with a verdict against Francesco Cascella, nephew-by-marriage of the boss who acted as an intermediary between the clan and the then director of the paper, Gianluigi Guarino, in order to remove the journalist from his post.
The ruling declares that the clan influenced the editorial policy of the paper, which is published by Gruppo Libra, the same company that charged Saviano with plagiarism (see "Plagiarism dispute" above) after he criticized the editorial policy of some of their local newspapers on several occasions: at the Mantova Festivaletteratura in 2008, in a special for the television show Che tempo che fa on March 25, 2009, and in the book La parola contro la camorra (in 2010).
Journalist and television host, Nadia Toffa, looked at the Palmesano case on the television program OpenSpace, interviewing Enzo Palmesano, Giovanni Conzo (the judge who oversaw the investigation), and Saviano.
Roberto Saviano