NDRANGHETA in CALABRIA

Vincent C Figliomeni, PhD

FRANCESCO FIGLIOMENI SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH CENTEER IN CALABRIA

vfiglio@tin.it

‘Ndrangheta in Calabria• This is the Calabrian version of the Mafia. They use violence for maintaining the fear and informal social control over the population with whom their very existence ironically is maintained. •On the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, there is good reason to revisit this ‘Ndrangheta issue as it persists in stifling the political, social and economic development of an otherwise culturally serene and potentially rich southern most region on the Italian peninsula

•This study is still ongoing and provides an analytic framework in order to better understand this crime problem as well as to offer some salient criminological strategies that can enhance current progress of combating this criminal element that is infested into the social fabric of Calabria

• The ‘Ndrangheta groups are approx 100 total 6000. Until 1975, the 'Ndrangheta restricted their Italian operations to Calabria, mainly involved in extortion and blackmailing - kidnapping rich targets from Northern Italy.

• Local Gang wars occurred in 1975 subsiding after a few years errupting again in the Second 'Ndrangheta war from 1985 to 1991. Interests expanded worldwide.

• In the 1990s, the Ndrangheta invested in the illegal international drug trade importing cocaine from Colombia.

• Meanwhile the Sicilian Mafia was the focal point of Italian authorities. The Mafia’s violent confrontation with state and civil society culminated in the 1992 murders of judges Falcone and Borsellino, which invoked the anti-mafia movement causing strong legislative and law enforcement countermeasures.

LAW ENFORCEMENT SUCCESS

JUDICIAL CHALLENGES

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

• On 16 October 2005 Francesco Fortugno, popular center-left politician and deputy president of the regional parliament was asasinated by the 'Ndrangheta in Locri.

• The Italian government started large-scale enforcement operations in Calabria arresting hundreds of ‘Ndrangheta members and associates including the those alleged to be the murderers of Fortugno.

• Demonstrations occurred against the ‘Ndrangheta and subsided gradually as prosecutions dragged out.

• The 'Ndrangheta had already expanded to Northern Italy to sell drugs and to invest in legitimate businesses used for money laundering.

• In May 2007 twenty 'Ndrangheta were arrested in Milan.• On 30 August 2007 police raided the small Calabrian town of

San Luca, the focal point of rival clans among the 'Ndrangheta. Over 30 men and women, linked to the killing of six Italian men in Duisenberg Germany, were arrested.

• In March 2006, a national anti-Mafia prosecutor discovered a 'Ndrangheta narco submarine in Colombia to be used for smuggling cocaine.

• In September 2009 'Ndrangheta allegedly sunk dozens of ships loaded with radioactive waste off the Italian coast and near developing countries.

• Reports of other toxic dumping have emerged (Cordova 2010)

• Last year, ‘Ndrangheta Associates were arrested in operations on 3 continents: Italy/Germany, Canada and Australia.In July 2010, the 305 'Ndrangheta members arrested revealed that the 'ndrangheta was extremely "hierarchical, united and pyramidal," and not just clan-based as previously believed, according to Italy's chief anti-mafia prosecutor Piero Grasso.

• These recent international arrests have included mayor’s, police, and civil servants along with rank in file.

• The arrests stemmed from a wiretapping operation by Italian police in which they recorded senior mafia suspects discussing operations all over the world.

• Those arrested were charged with offences e.g., drug

trafficking, money laundering and protection rackets and possession of arms and explosives.

• Furthermore, anti-mafia legislation has become the target of politicians and state officials colluding with the mafia or sharing mafiosi's judicial interests.

• Italy’s current Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has been suspected of investing and laundering Cosa Nostra money at the beginning of his career.

• He has been countering anti-corruption and anti-mafia investigations against him and his associates ever since his political career began in 1994 .

• Even more than in the past, the survival of mafia groups seems to depend on how their relationships with politics are set up in the future (Paoli 2003: 212).

• “On 30 May 2008, George Bush inserted the Ndrangheta on the black-list of undesirable oganizations, implemented through the Kingpin Act of 1999.

The immediate consequence of the presidential decision was the connection between persons of the USA affiliated with or doing business with Ndrangheta money.

In the USA, it’s enough that one buys a pizzaria with dirty money and the FBI arrive and place you in handirons and seal-up the establishment until resold for the best offer. The news is sensational. But in Italy, it goes unnoticed.” (Veltri/Laudati 2009:149)

• USA does not have all of the legal authorities in place to eliminate organized crime like the ‘Ndragheta.

• Rather, working in concert in a global effort to share

criminal intelligence (some law enforcement in Italy does inform the USA of the Ndrangheta) as much as the USA informs Italy of American Cosa Nostra operating abroad.

• “The Ndrangheta is invisible like the other side of the moon” according to Florida State Prosecutor, Julie Tingwall, in Tampa during the 1980’s

• “Few insider witnesses & powerful families do not exibit grand villas, but live modestly. Ndrangheta is entrenched with the state and doesn’t combat it. The state is weak and the Ndrangheta needs it for its public spending: banking, financing,hospitals, roads superhighways, railroad, ports, central electric power, power incineration are welcome because it brings money.” (Veltri/Laudati 2009:148)

• Giuseppe Pignatone - anti-mafia prosecutor Reggio Calabria:

• "The foreign groups always maintain contact with the centre of operations (in Reggio Calabria area) where they periodically come to take their orders, directives, long-term strategies, as well as give an account of what's going on. The fulcrum remains Calabria."

• Unlike the Sicilian Mafia, the 'Ndrangheta managed to maintain a horizontal organizational structure up to the early 1990s, avoiding the establishment of a formal superordinate body.

• Information from recent witnesses has undermined the myth of absolute autonomy of Calabrian crime families.

• According to Italian DIA (Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, Department of the Police of Italy against organized crime) and Guardia di Finanza (Italian Customs Police) the ‘Ndrangheta is one of the most powerful criminal elements.

• Economic activities of 'Ndrangheta include international cocaine and weapons smuggling, with Italian investigators estimating that 80% of Europe's cocaine passes through the Calabrian port of Gioia Tauro and is controlled by the 'Ndrangheta. (Europol 2010).

• The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated that in 2007 almost 4 MT of cocaine was intercepted in Italy. (UNODC 2009).

• 'Ndrangeta groups and Sicilian Cosa Nostra groups sometimes act as joint ventures in cocaine trafficking enterprises.

• Further activities include skimming money off large public work construction projects, money laundering and traditional crimes such as usury and extortion.

• 'Ndrangheta invests illegal profits in legal real estate and financial activities.

• The business volume of the 'Ndrangheta is estimated at almost 44 billion euro in 2007, approximately 2.9% of Italy's GDP, according to Eurispes (European Institute of Political, Economic and Social Studies) in Italy.

SOCIAL INTERVENTION

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

LONG TERM EDUCATION

• “The most important challenge facing the Italian political class in the anti-mafia struggleis is identical of that which it confronts in the wider sphere

– that of relegitimizing the exercise of public power by example, of leading Italians toward a faith in public authority and institutions and reversing the common view of the state as a hostile force to be distrusted to one which recognizes it as guardian of the collective good….

…in Paolo Borsellino’s words, if the state ‘works’ throughout Italy, there is a real chance that the criminal phenomenon whch has so tragically depleted the extraordinary people and land of Italy’s mezzogiorno will wither and fade away” (Jamieson 2000: 235).

• “Ndrangheta is the strongest, most flexible, dynamic, and trusted in the international drug trafficking market, most rooted in Italy, in the center, in the north, and abroad. “(Gratteri/Nicaso 2011: 143)

• But it is the least studied and most mysterious. A mafia that seeks to move shielded from the spotlight with the exception of the murder of Francesco Fortugno Regional Vice President (2005 in Locri) and the Duisburg affair (2007 in Germany), that the Ndtangheta considered a dangerous accident. A mafia that prefers to build social relations and penetrates in silence politics and institutions in order to exercise control totally in the sector of public works contracts and management of public finances, national and European. “(Gratteri/Nicaso 2011: 144)

• “In order to defeat the mafia, you need the forces necessary to stay everyday in that sector to control the level and magnitude of penetration into contracts, local entities and politics. “(Gratteri/Nicaso 2011: 151)”

• “The battle is cultural, a problem of social intervention and long term education. ..There is undoutibly a responsibility and a duty for those that lost their lives constructing long term legality and justice of the nation, but also a committment really embraced by all and that can’t be delegated to only law enforcent and or the judiciary: a duty to do our part like citizens, and of organizers.” (Morabito/Ciotti 2010:115)

THE ‘NDRANGHETA EXISTS AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE FABRIC OF SOCIETY

• - over a hundred years of tradition• - integrated into both illegitimate and legitimate business• - have less pentiti as the close bloodties among associates

avoids insider witnesses•  - culturally more relavant and socially more potent than

the government

OVER AND ABOVE THE ANTI-MAFIA LEGISLATION IMPLEMENTED, OTHER AUTHORITIES ARE NEEDED:

• More customized Laws designed to identify, interrupt and infiltrate illegal business transactions among suspected organized crime actors are required

• Prosecution is complex, legnthly and dependent on reluctant witnesses often creating loopholes for those on trial

• Pretrial rules require more stringent application

MAJOR SOCIALIZATION CHANGE and LOCALIZED IMPROVEMENTS IN LEGITIMATE OPPORTUNITY

• Anti-organized crime studies in schools at all grades• Community-wide public demonstrations stressing civic

ethical and moral condemnation of the ‘Ndrangheta and organized crime

• Public aweareness campaigns on negative impacts of Ndrangheta organized crime on local and global communities

• More flexible and effective Legislation in support of enforcement against Ndrangheta organized crime activities

• Public awareness of successful prosecutions• Greater local legitimate economic opportunities

• WAY AHEAD

• Collect Official Crime data on ‘Ndrangheta

• Content Analysis of Media Coverage

• Interviews with key leaders in Calabria

– Law Enforcement, Prosecutors and Judges

– Political, Social Services, and Business leaders

– Educators and Religious leaders

• Issue Public Opinion Questionnaire regarding political, social, cultural, and economic change

NDRANGHETA in CALABRIA

QUESTIONS?

NDRANGHETA in CALABRIA

Dr. Vincent C Figliomeni, PhD

FRANCESCO FIGLIOMENI SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH CENTEER IN CALABRIA

vfiglio@tin.it

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