What is the 'Ndrangheta and How Did It Move Out of the 'Shadow' of the Sicilian Mafia?
14:48 GMT 10.11.2021 (Updated: 10:59 GMT 05.03.2023)
© AP Photo / Andrea Rosa / ndrangheta
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On Saturday 70 people were convicted of a range of crimes by a court in a special high security bunker in southern Italy. The convictions were part of a maxi-trial involving 355 members of the ‘ndrangheta.
Italy is often described geographically as a boot and Calabria is the toe of that boot, just across the Straits of Messina from Sicily.
The Sicilian mafia - sometimes referred to as La Cosa Nostra (This Thing Of Ours) - has always had the higher profile, partly due to Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather and the subsequent Hollywood movies starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino.
For many years the Sicilian mafia was the most powerful organised crime group in Italy but the work of Judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino - both of whom were assassinated with bombs - in the 1980s and early 1990s began to erode their power.
By tradition, the Godfather cannot refuse a request on his daughter's wedding day
© AP Photo
The capture of Cosa Nostra bosses Salvatore “Toto” Riina in 1993 and Bernardo “The Tractor” Provenzano in 2006 damaged the power of the Sicilian mafia even further.
The Rise of Calabria's Criminals
The 'ndrangheta began their rise to power in the late 1990s.
Italy has other mafias - the Camorra from Naples, the Sacra Corona Unita from Puglia and various Rome-based gangs - but the ‘ndrangheta have risen to prominence in recent years.
They have a powerful presence in Germany, Canada and parts of the United States where there are Calabrian communities.
In the last 20 years it is estimated the ‘ndrangheta has made £50 billion from cocaine alone.
Dr Anna Sergi, a criminologist at the University of Essex, said: “The ‘ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra have always been sisters in a way and the relationship between the two should not be under-estimated. But at the time when the Cosa Nostra was being affected by state activities the ‘ndrangheta was in the shadow cone, where no-one was paying attention, and it was filling the gaps in the cocaine trade.”
But the ‘ndrangheta is not a single monolothic unit, but instead a disparate group of families or clans which constantly vie for dominance in Calabria.
Dr Anna Sergi, whose book Chasing The Mafia: Ndrangheta Memories and Journeys is due out next year, said the ‘ndrangheta had been declared to be an organised crime group by the Court of Cassation, Italy’s supreme court, in 2016 following a massive operation in which the police covertly recorded an annual get-together of the clans.
Who are the 'Ndrangheta Clans?
Dr Anna Sergi said the term ‘ndrangheta technically referred only to a group of clans in the province of Reggio Calabria, in southern Calabria.
These included the Piromalli family from the town of Gioia Tauro, the DeStefanos and Rosminis from the city of Reggio di Calabria itself and the Commiso and Costa clans from the town of Siderno.
The clans on trial at the current maxi-trial are from Vibo Valentia province, in western Calabria, and include the Mancuso clan, based in Vibo Valentia, and headed by Luigi Mancuso, sometimes referred to as The Uncle.
Dr Sergi said: “All the clans in ‘ndrangheta are fairly independent and autonomous. They do develop co-ordination structures as they need them but they are not bound by them. Each clan has their own capacity to do their business and they don’t need the permission of other clans to do so. But they will interact with one another because they are close to one another and they have to avoid any feud or rivalry.”
Mancuso is one of the 320 defendants in a trial in a specially designed bunker near the Calabrian town of Lamezia Terme. The trial began earlier this year and is expected to run well into 2022.
Mancuso’s top lieutenant, Pasquale Gallone, 62, was convicted on Saturday and was jailed for 20 years.
i hate stereotypes but "The highest-profile defendant is the alleged clan boss Luigi Mancuso, 66, also known as "The Uncle". Other defendants are said to go by nicknames such as "The Wolf", "Fatty" and "Blondie".
— SHABS (@JoeShabadu) January 13, 2021
Domenico Macri of the Mancuso’s ‘military wing’ was also given 20 years, as was Gregorio Niglia, whose job was procuring weapons and extorting businesses.
But an Italian lawyer and a businessman who prosecutors claimed had been in league with the Mancuso clan were among 20 people acquitted.
Cocaine Has Been the Golden Ticket
Dr Sergi said it was a misnomer to assume the ‘ndrangheta had overtaken the Sicilian mafia, which she said was “alive and well” and she added: “Not all the ‘ndrangheta clans are rich and powerful. Some of them are actually struggling.”
But she said the richer clans had gained their wealth by trafficking cocaine globally, while others had stuck to traditional crimes like kidnap and extortion.
In the 1980s a bunker was constructed near Palermo and 475 members of the Cosa Nostra were put on trial.
That maxi-trial, relying as it did on the evidence of “pentito” or supergrasses, helped to break the power of the Cosa Nostra and the lead prosecutor in the current maxi-trial, Nicola Gratteri, hopes it will smash the power of the ‘ndrangheta.
