COVID: Major 'Ndrangheta trials threatened by virus

(ANSA) - TURIN, 17 NOV - A raft of major trials into the Calabria-basd 'Ndrangheta mafia's infiltration of the economy of he northern region of Piedmont are under threat because courts' inability to set up video conferences with jailed mafiosi who are COVID positive but asymptomatic, Turin prosecutors say.
    The prosecutors in the Piedmont capital are set to send a warning over the threat to Italy's anti-mafia directorate and the penitentiary agency DAP, sources said Tuesday.
    Due to the lack of videolinks, they said, hearings have suffered long delays.
    These delays are threatening to allow convicts out of jail as their preventive custody terms expire, the prosecutors have warned.
    At least one trial has already been derailed.
    It was the 'Phoenix-Carminius' 'maxi-trial' at the court in Asti.
    'Ndrangheta has long infiltrated the economies of Piedmont and other northern and central regions.
    It is Italy's richest and most powerful mafia thanks to its control of the European cocaine trade.
    Last week there was a major breakthrough as the first big 'Ndrangheta boss started helping police from his prison cell.
    The Calabrian organisation's rule of silence or 'omerta' ' is even tighter than that of Cosa Nostra in Sicily, its older but less powerful cousin.
    But Maurizio Cortese, considered to be the 'regent' of the Serraino clan, has now decided to become a confidential informant.
    All its activities have been estimated to be worth the equivalent of at least three per cent of Italian GDP.
    According to a 2013 "Threat Assessment on Italian Organised Crime" by Europol and the Guardia di Finanza, 'Ndrangheta income was around $55 billion in 2008.
    Its tentacles have spread from its southern Italian base to central and northern Italy, northern Europe, North and South America and Australia, among other areas.
    Its influence is especially strong in the affluent northern Italian regions of Lombardy, Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna, but it has also spread to Lazio and Rome.
    The other mafias in Italy are Cosa Nostra, and the Camorra in Campania.
    There is a smaller mafia in Puglia, the sacra Corona Unita (United Holy Crown, SCU), which is generally considered less dangerous and expansive.
    But Italy's top anti-mafia prosecutor on Monday dubbed it public enemy no.1. (ANSA).