Italy: five things to know about the Calabrian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Sebastian Gollnow / DPA / dpa Picture-Alliance via AFP 16:34 pm, May 03, 2023

The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, the target of a spectacular Europe-wide raid on Wednesday, is considered by experts to be the most powerful Italian mafia after supplanting the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Neapolitan Camorra. Here are five things to know about the 'Ndrangheta. According to criminologist Anna Sergi of the British University of Essex, the name is of Greek origin, with the word "andranghateia" referring to "a group of men of honour" and the word "andrangatho" meaning "to execute a military action".

The 'Ndrangheta has only been considered a mafia in Italian law since 2010, but its origins date back at least to the unification of Italy in 1861. It became known in the 1980s and 1990s through a series of kidnappings. She is suspected of the kidnapping in the 1970s in Rome of the grandson of American oil magnate John Paul Getty.

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The color of silver

No one knows exactly what the numbers are, but according to the Italian judiciary, it has at least 20,000 members worldwide. According to Italian magistrate Roberto di Bella, the 'Ndrangheta is the criminal organization "with the most ramifications and present on five continents". Italian prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, who sits in Catanzaro, one of the strongholds of the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria, one of Italy's poorest regions, estimates its annual turnover at 50 billion euros, largely derived from cocaine trafficking. What differentiates it from other mafias is its family structure, "which makes it very reliable because there are few repentants," Roberto di Bella told AFP.

The international ramifications of the 'Ndrangheta forced the Italian authorities to seek help from their foreign counterparts. In 2020, Italy set up the "I-CAN" program through Interpol in order to inform other countries where the 'Ndrangheta is present about the organization of this mafia and structure the repressive response.

Prior to Wednesday's operation, 46 members of the 'Ndrangheta had been arrested worldwide under the programme. The most famous of these is Rocco Morabito, one of Italy's most wanted fugitives, who was arrested last year in Brazil, after escaping from a prison in Uruguay in 2019.

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Massacre in Germany

A bloody episode in Germany threw the 'Ndrangheta to the forefront: in August 2007, the bodies of six Italians, aged between 16 and 39 and members of one of the two mafia clans of the Calabrian town of San Luca, were discovered riddled with bullets in two vehicles in front of the Italian restaurant "Da Bruno" in Duisburg.

This massacre was, according to investigators, a "vendetta" after the assassination at the end of 2006 of Maria Strangio, wife of Giovanni Nirta, head of the rival clan. If its killers may have in the past poured victims in cement or dissolved them in acid, the 'Ndrangheta now prefers to be discreet.

300 accused at trial

A maxi-trial with more than 300 defendants, alleged members or close to the 'Ndrangheta, opened in 2021, unveiling the network of politicians, lawyers and businessmen accused of collusion with the mafia. In terms of proportion, this trial was surpassed only by the first maxi-trial of 1986-1987 in Palermo against the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, at the end of which 338 defendants were convicted. Judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were then murdered by the Mafia.