Mahmoud Al-Adam
Recent police crackdowns on Mafia gangs in four European countries have prompted the media to highlight a number of dark aspects of these gangs that run - according to press reports - about 80 percent of the drug trade in the old continent.
According to Italian police reports, the Mafia Nderangita, which is active in the southern province of Calabria, is now the most powerful mafia, controlling the cocaine trade.
Although this gang has been the target of campaigns by the police, and even for more than a decade by the US Treasury, it has established its hegemony over the cocaine trade and has been able to establish links with organized crime groups around the world. brief history
Before exploring the details of this gang, it is necessary to present a historical overview of the Italian mafia gangs in general.
According to Wikipedia, the Mafia can be defined as organized crime gangs that primarily engage in blackmail, use intimidation for illegal trafficking and manipulate economic activity, and engage in other activities such as drug trafficking, high interest loans and forgery.
These bands are linked to a code of ethics, in particular the Charter of Silence, which protects the Mafia from foreign infiltration and law enforcement measures.
These mafias originated in southern Italy in the 18th century and were founded by a group of dangerous prisoners who, once released from their prisons, began to gain political influence in Italy and spread to other countries such as Russia, Japan, the United States and others.
All the gangs kept the same name as "Mafia", which differed in its origin, but what was agreed by the term and without going into details is that this name is called this type of criminal gangs.
| Mafia building destroyed in Rome (Reuters) |
The most famous mafias of Italy
In the southern part of Italy, a number of mafias have been spread, most notably the Sakra, the Unitarian Church, which originated in Puglia, southern Italy, and is particularly active in the Brindisi, Lecce and Taranto regions.
The Camorra mafia, which originated in the city of Naples, southern Italy, was known by historians as a "secret public institution whose ultimate goal is to bring about evil," and has more than 7,000 members.
The months are locally and globally mafia Cosa Nostra, born of the 18th-century crime gangs on Sicily, Italy, and formed a free alliance of gangs with a common organizational structure and common rules of conduct.
All subsequent Mafia gangs sprang up from the mother band, Cosa Nostra, and became popular in the United States, battling other gangs in Chicago, New York and other US cities in the struggle for power and tax sharing.
According to security reports, the FBI estimates the number of the three most important Italian mafia gangs, Cosa Nostra, Camorra and Sacra Corona, to be around 25,000, while the number of people connected around the world is up to a quarter of a million.
However, although not recognized abroad as a rural gang, Nderangita has managed to become the most powerful crime organization in Italy since the late 1990s.
| Security crackdowns on Mafia gangs in Italy (Reuters) |
60 billion dollars
A report published by the US network CNN highlighted this gang, following police raids on its strongholds, which resulted in the arrest of dozens of its leaders and members.
The report said that the chairman of Italy's most influential Mafia group, Domenico Obotisano, 80, was traveling in a three-wheeled van, and he was referring to his needs from the market himself.
Mafia observers estimate that the money run by the gang is more than $ 60 billion a year, equivalent to the gross domestic product of a country like Croatia or Bulgaria.
The gang maintains ties with drug producers and distributors throughout Latin America, Peru, Colombia and Brazil.
The CNN report quoted Cecilia Annecy, an investigative journalist who spent some time at the heart of the group, saying that a new generation of leaders wanted to find ways to invest revenue from kidnapping and protection. The answer was cocaine.
Italian court documents described drug trafficking as a "gold mine" used by Nderangita to invest in the economy of Italy and abroad.
Antonio Nicasso, who wrote some 30 books on organized crime, said that the mafia included "its rural origins and creativity" and added that it had taken control of all major smuggling routes, including ports in Brazil and West Africa, European ports.
The Mafia has maintained bank accounts in Monte Carlo and Milan and is moving clients to Colombia, Spain, Germany, the Balkans, Canada and Australia.
According to a US official, Ndrangita is laundering rapidly rising revenues by investing in tourism on the French Riviera, restaurants and real estate in Spain, public contracts in northern Italy, as well as cafes and bars from Dusseldorf to South London.
| Residents evacuated during security crackdown on Mafia site in Rome (Reuters) |
Family Links
The area of Calabria, from which Ndrangita was launched, is an ideal Mafia region, a remote and secret mountainous area, one of Europe's poorest regions and hostile to any form of state authority.
Some historic families such as Bailey, Romeo and Georges dominate the area. Despite the historical animosities and feuds among these families, which have resulted in dozens of victims over the years, they have made sure that these conflicts do not go public.
It has created a board of directors to settle disputes, strengthen their ties and strengthen family ties through marriage, making the collapse of the mafia more difficult than others. It has become "almost impossible to distinguish within the Nderangita family between blood and criminal associations, "He said.
While thousands of other gang members have become informants to the security authorities, only dozens of Nderangita's members have been overturned, none of them senior, Nikaso said.
Security campaigns
European police security campaigns have not stopped this mafia, and the waves of arrests over the past decade have certainly hindered the work of the criminal group.
The security services have benefited from the new technology in tracking the movements of some of the leaders of the mafia, resulting in the arrest of hundreds of them during the last decade, including police officers.
But security concerns remain in place, especially with experts estimating that the mafia's organizational structure is able to restructure itself quickly. An Italian police official described it as "chameleon-like" because of its effectiveness and ability to change its course of action while maintaining its invisible base in the Calabria Mountains.
"They have completely penetrated local politics and are able to turn municipal elections to their candidates, and they can buy, threaten or liquidate anyone who defies them," he said.
The Mafia also controls a whole range of legal economic activities such as waste disposal, construction projects, renewable energy, agriculture, tourism, and recent refugee activity.
Mr Nikasso says the recent campaigns have only "scratched the surface" at a time when journalist Annecy says, "These families have the capacity to reorganize themselves within two weeks."