New Mafia gains power in Italy, baffling law enforcement
July 13, 2008 - Detroit Free Press
REGGIO CALABRIA, Italy -- The tale of "The Godfather" seems almost quaint from this rocky, remote outpost in Italy.
Prosecutors and lawmakers are increasingly riveted by a more mysterious and blood-bound crime racket rooted in these far southern reaches of Calabria -- not Sicily -- that in the past two decades has put Italy at the heart of the global cocaine market.
The Calabrian Mafia, known as 'Ndrangheta, has been described in recent investigations as ruthless, pervasive in the Italian economy and an exporter of criminal businesses that span continents.
In May, the U.S. government placed 'Ndrangheta on its list of narcotic kingpin organizations. Italian authorities say their counterparts in the United States as well as Canada, Germany and other Western countries are among those playing catch-up in understanding an insidious and far-flung family enterprise.
'Ndrangheta operates in cells and in ways so opaque to top law enforcement that those trying to grapple with its spread -- including Italy's parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission -- have likened it to Al Qaeda.
It has "infiltrated so many levels of society," said Francesco Forgione, a former commission chairman who detailed its findings in a new book, "'Ndrangheta: Bosses, Places and Business of the Most Powerful Mafia in the World."
"We refer to it as a 'liquid mafia' -- it seeps into everything. And we found it's like Al Qaeda," Forgione said. "It is able to reproduce itself."
Think tanks and the parliamentary report estimate that 'Ndrangheta has annual revenues of $55 billion to $70 billion. Drug trafficking is its lifeblood.
Other activities -- including extortion, prostitution, construction contracting and waste management -- enable 'Ndrangheta to operate with yearly revenues equivalent to 3% of Italy's gross domestic product, according to a recent study by the Eurispes research group, a Rome-based nonprofit think tank.
With that bounty, 'Ndrangheta acts as a sort of holding company, Eurispes said. It is like a majority shareholder that provides satellite operations -- in this case, the clans -- a network to move people and products, Eurispes said. It estimated that drug trafficking alone accounts for 62% of 'Ndrangheta's illegal profits.
The overall picture of all Mafia revenues in Italy is remarkable. In a September 2007 report, the Italian confederation of trade, tourism and service company operators estimated that criminal activity by the four Italian Mafias (Cosa Nostra in Sicily, Camorra in Naples, 'Ndrangheta in Calabria and Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia) produces revenue of $145 billion, about 7% of Italy's economy.
With few exceptions, 'Ndrangheta never confronted government authority or engaged in sensational murders of prosecutors, such as the infamous 1992 car bombings of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino that spurred deeper investigations of the Cosa Nostra.
And that was the decade when 'Ndrangheta grew. It once relied on the Cosa Nostra as its conduit to cocaine suppliers. In the 1990s, it established its own tight relationship with Colombian cartels -- and began thinking globally.
'Ndrangheta works from a cell-based rather than hierarchal structure. There is no head. Unlike the Cosa Nostra, which has captains and commissions, eliminating one part of the 'Ndrangheta Mafia doesn't mean undoing its enterprise, said Giuseppe Pignatone, the newly appointed lead prosecutor in Reggio Calabria, the regional capital.
More important, 'Ndrangheta is all about family. It relies on relatives who scattered during Italy's hungry years in the 1920s. Emigrants to Australia, Canada and Mexico were among those who became part of 'Ndrangheta's network, Pignatone said. That family loyalty makes 'Ndrangheta dangerously distinctive when compared with other Mafias.
"The 'Ndrangheta has no turncoats who tell their tales," Pignatone said. "They are family. Brothers don't turn on brothers ... or sisters or fathers. ... This makes Reggio Calabria ... one of the most challenging places for Mafia prosecutions."
By some estimates there are as many as 10,000 members of 'Ndrangheta, about a third more than the Cosa Nostra or the Naples-based Mafia, the Camorra. They lived fairly quietly -- there was only one killing of a Calabrian official in 2005 -- and generally kept a low profile, authorities said.
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