Police executed 90 arrest
warrants on Wednesday as part of an international operation
against the Calabrian-based 'Ndrangheta mafia.
The arrests were made in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands,
Belgium and countries in South America.
The operation hit various important alleged members of clans
in the high-crime Locride area of Calabria.
The 'Ndrangheta network spanned South America to Turkey via
northern Europe and was based around the main Locride clans like
the Pelle-Vottaris of San Luca, the Iettos of Natile di Careri
and the Ursinis of Gioiosa Ionica, police and prosecutors told a
press conference.
"Huge amounts of cocaine flooded in from South America to
Italy and northern Europe, particularly Germany, the Netherlands
and Belgium, also thanks to the collaboration of Turkish
citizens who hid the drugs in concealed spaces of cars and
lorries," they said.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said "'Ndrangheta,
maxi-operation with 90 arrests between Italy, the Netherlands,
Germany and South America.
"Thanks and honour to the police and the investigators,
always in the front line in the fight against the mafias.
"PS: I hope no one gets offended or attacks me for these
compliments of mine".
Salvini was referring to Turin Chief Prosecutor Armando
Spataro who said Tuesday Salvini had jeopardised an operation
against the Nigerian mafia in Italy by tweeting about it before
it was completed.
Salvini retorted that veteran prosecutor Spadaro should
either retire or go into politics where he could be judged for
his comments.
Tuesday's operation confirmed how far 'Ndrangheta has grown
from being poor cousins of Sicily's Cosa Nostra, dealing mainly
in kidnappings on their mountainous and impregnable Calabrian
home turf.
They have also expanded their operations to central and
northern Italy as well as northern Europe, Canada and Australia,
to mention just a few of their new strongholds.
In the last such major police op against the mafia, a year
ago, prosecutors landed a big blow on the 'Ndrangheta's
operations in the wealthy northern region of Lombardy, with the
mayor of the town of Seregno among 24 arrested and the former
deputy governor of the region among those probed.
The police op was linked to a probe into alleged infiltration
of Lombardy's political and business world by 'Ndrangheta,
Italy's richest, most powerful and dangerous mafia.
Some 21 suspects were taken to jail and three were put under
house arrest, including Edoardo Mazza, the mayor of the province
of Monza town of Seregno and a member of ex-premier and media
mogul Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia party.
A businessman was caught on a wiretap telling Mario former
deputy governor Mario Mantovani that "Milan is like San Luca", a
notorious Calabrian fief of 'Ndrangheta.
Prosecutor Ilda Boccassini, who led the probe, said that "I
can say there is a system" based on "omerta' (the mafia code of
silence) and on "advantages for those who turn to the anti-State
to get benefits".
Speaking at a press conference, she said "it is easy for the
clans to infiltrate the institutional fabric".
Italian police have gradually been digging behind the wall
of silence or omerta' that for 'Ndrangheta is even more
impenetrable than that of Sicily's Cosa Nostra.
In January 2015 police arrested more than 160 people in the
biggest-ever operation against a northern business arm of
'Ndrangheta.
The op showed how far the one-time southern kidnapping
gangs - long poor relations to Sicily's Cosa Nostra but now
grown plump on cocaine cash - had infiltrated the economy of
Italy's most affluent regions, especially the thriving economy
of Reggio Emilia around Bologna.
Other probes have shown 'Ndrangheta infiltration in the
region around Milan, Lombardy, the region around Genoa, Liguria,
and the region around Turin, Piedmont.
In February 2014 a major Italian-FBI bust showed that
'Ndrangheta was muscling in on the drug operations of one of
Cosa Nostra's historic five families in New York, the Gambinos.
Before that, in July 2010, a massive police operation
netted the head of the 'Ndrangheta and 300 others.
Domenico Oppedisano, 80, anointed the equivalent of the
'boss of bosses' in Cosa Nostra at a Calabrian shrine to the
Madonna a year previously, was caught along with their reputed
head in Lombardy, Pino Neri.
'Ndrangheta is so secretive that the replacement for
Oppedisano is not known.
'Ndrangheta (from a Greek word meaning 'heroism' or
'virtue') once lived in the twin shadow of Cosa Nostra in Sicily
and the Camorra in Naples.
While those two syndicates, notably the Sicilians, were
feeding off the transatlantic heroin trade through operations
like the infamous 'French connection', 'Ndrangheta was only just
emerging from its traditional stock-in-trade of kidnappings in
the Calabrian highlands.
It has since become a highly sophisticated global network
with a chokehold on the European cocaine trade and control over
swathes of its home turf where police fear to tread, Italian
officials say.
As well as being the richest, 'Ndrangheta is also regarded
as the most impenetrable of Italy's mafias, with its close-knit
family-based organisation outdoing the Sicilian mafia in its
ability to defeat police efforts to turn members into State
witnesses.
The European law enforcement agency Europol has identified
the 'Ndrangheta mafia as one of the "most threatening" organized
crime groups on the global level, due to its "enormous financial
might" and "immense corruptive power," with a presence in
Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Switzerland,
Canada, US, Colombia and Australia, where 'Ndrangheta turf wars
have gained headlines.
In Europe, 'Ndrangheta really only came into the public eye
in 2007, when six clan members were gunned down on the midsummer
Ferragosto holiday in the German city of Duisburg in a feud that
began as a wedding spat in 1991.
A string of 'Ndrangheta-linked businesses have been seized
in the last few years all over northern Italy, and especially in
the affluent Lombard belt around Milan, and a Lombardy regional
councillor was placed under investigation for buying votes from
transplanted clans.
On the Italian Riviera, the town councils of Bordighera and
Ventimiglia were dissolved for 'Ndrangheta infiltration in 2011
and 2012, the first non-Calabrian municipalities to be wound up
because of such penetration.
In Rome, the Calabrian Mob has laundered money in a string
of plum properties, as attested to by recent seizures police
say are only the tip of the iceberg.
In November 2013 Grand Hotel Gianicolo, a former monastery
converted into a four-star hotel for the Catholic Church's
Jubilee in 2000, was seized from Calabrian businessmen linked to
the 'Ndrangheta.
It is one of the swankiest properties on the hill, Gianicolo
or Janiculum, that affords one of the most breathtaking views
over Rome.
Eight years ago a former Dolce Vita-era bar and restaurant
on the storied Via Veneto, the Caffe' De Paris, turned out to be
in the hands of the Calabrian Mob.
More recently, gangsters involved in a hitherto-unknown Rome
crime organisation that allegedly had fingers in a web of
business and political operations were said to have links to
other mafias including 'Ndrangheta.
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