Biggest lawsuit against 'Ndrangheta opens in Calabria
The Italian prosecutor of Catanzaro, Nicola Grattieri, led the investigation which led to the trial of the 'Ndrangheta mafia which begins on January 13, 2021. AP - Riccardo De Luca
Text by: Anne Le Nir Follow
4 min
A maxi-trial against hundreds of suspected members of the all-powerful Calabrian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta, opens this Wednesday morning in a huge bunker enclosure, built in Lamezia Terme, Calabria.
Among the accused, high-ranking "bosses", entrepreneurs, administrative leaders, but also politicians and police officers.
The list of offenses is very long: murders, mafia association, drug trafficking, illegal possession of weapons, money laundering, concealment, usury, or even abuse of power.
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It is an unprecedented trial, which cannot be compared with the maxi-trial against
Cosa Nostra,
the Sicilian mafia, which was held in Palermo between 1986 and 1987 and at the end of which 338 defendants were convicted.
For the 'Ndrangheta, which has about 20,000 affiliates, is another form of criminal organization.
It is indeed the only mafia present on the five continents and whose roots and clans remain anchored in Calabria.
Or a kind of multinational which is enriched especially thanks to the trafficking of cocaine, imported from South America.
Which earns him, according to experts, 50 billion euros per year.
To lead to this trial, during which will be called to the bar 355 defendants, 913 witnesses - including former repentant mafiosi - and more than 350 lawyers, four years of investigations were necessary.
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To read also: Vast anti-mafia attack in Sicily for embezzlement of European funds
A prosecutor who grew up with future mafia bosses
At the head of these investigations, the prosecutor of Catanzaro, Nicola Gratteri, is the most famous of the Italian anti-mafia magistrates.
He is considered to be the heir of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, assassinated by
Cosa Nostra
in 1992.
62-year-old Nicola Gratteri was born in Gerace, a village in the heart of Calabria, where he grew up with the children of
local
bosses
who, in turn, became Mafia bosses.
They attended the same school, played soccer together and very often shared the vision of crime scenes in the middle of the street.
Nicola Gratteri, who has lived under police escort for more than thirty years, tells us that what drove him to become a magistrate, and to fight the N'drangheta: these are all the corpses he saw riddled with bullets during his childhood.
Connections between mafia and white collar workers
Such a trial obviously involves many risks.
A 3,000 square meter bunker room, equipped with 64 surveillance cameras, was therefore fitted out in a building in a former industrial area in Lamezia Terme, a town in the center of Calabria.
Everything is planned to respect the anti-Covid rules and to separate the entries for the accused, the witnesses, the lawyers and the judges.
This trial will last at least two years.
According to the statements of the prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, it will allow to deepen the knowledge on the functioning of the 'Ndrangheta and to better fight against the connections between the most powerful clans of this mafia and the white collar workers.
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To read also: Coronavirus: in Italy, the mafia takes the opportunity to help the most disadvantaged
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