LAMEZIA TERME, Italy – A trial of more than 320 defendants began Wednesday in southern Italy against the crime syndicate ‘ndrangheta, arguably the richest criminal organization in the world that quietly accumulated power as the Sicilian mafia lost influence.
Expected to last at least a year, the trial is taking place in a high-security bunker specially built on the extensive site of an industrial park in Calabria, the “toe” of the Italian peninsula.
Prosecutors hope the trial will be a severe blow to the ‘ndrangheta, the Calabria-based mafia organization that has exploited tens of billions of dollars in cocaine revenues over decades to extend its criminal reach across Europe and across continents.
Anti-mafia prosecutor Nicola Gratteri told reporters on arriving at the bunker that the trial, which targets alleged members of a dozen crime clans, as well as local officials, businessmen and politicians who were allegedly in cahoots with mobsters, marked a turning point.
“Decades ago, people were shaking when talking about Cosa Nostra or using the word ‘ndrangheta, something they would say only in a hidden room, around the fireplace, whispering,” said Gratteri, who was born in Calabria and remembers how he played and attended school with boys who later became ‘ndranghetisti, as the union ranks are known. “Today we are beginning to speak in the open sun.”
Joyful for him and for others in Italy who are fighting the ‘ndrangheta, as well as other Italian crime syndicates, are the growing distances of the past, when few dared to provoke retaliation from the mobsters by reporting attempts to demand money to “protect” large and small businesses and other forms of intimidation.
“We have seen an increase in complaints from businessmen, intimidated citizens, victims of usury, people who for years have been under the shroud of the ‘ndrangheta,” said Gratteri.
Researchers say that ‘ndrangheta has established bases in much of western, northern and central Europe, Australia, North and South America and is also active in Africa.
The first three hours of the opening day of the trial were consumed by the formal call from the defendants’ court and their lawyers. Defendants who are in prison, because of convictions in other cases, will be able to follow the process through videoconference.
The trial stemmed from an investigation by 12 clans linked to a convicted ‘ndrangheta chief. That figure is Luigi Mancuso, who served 19 years in Italian prison for leading what investigators say is one of the most powerful criminal families in the ‘ndrangheta, based in the city of Vibo Valentia.
The prosecution has indicated that it expects to call more than 900 witnesses.
Among the charges being considered by the court are drug and arms trafficking, extortion and mafia association, a term used in the Italian penal code for members of organized crime groups. Others are accused of complicity with the ‘ndrangheta without actually being members.
About 325 defendants were sentenced to stand trial in the Lamezia Terme court, while about 90 other defendants in the investigation opted for a quick trial, which begins later this month in Calabria. In yet another consequence of the same investigation, a trial involving five murders begins in February elsewhere in Calabria.
The Lamezia Terme bunker is so vast that several video screens were fixed to the ceiling for participants to watch the process. There is a sea of tables for 600 lawyers to work, with microphones and chairs securely spaced to comply with COVID-19 health standards.
While the numbers are impressive, this week’s trial is not Italy’s biggest one against mobsters.
In 1986, in Palermo, in a similarly constructed bunker, 475 alleged members of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, went on trial, resulting in more than 300 convictions and 19 life sentences. That trial helped to reveal many of the brutal methods and murderous strategies of the main mafia bosses on the island, including sensational murders that bloodied the Palermo area during years of power struggles.
In contrast, this trial against the ‘ndrangheta aims to obtain convictions for alleged connivance between mobsters and local politicians, public officials, businessmen and members of secret stores, an indication of how deeply rooted the union is in the territory.
Based almost entirely on blood ties, the ‘ndrangheta for decades has been largely immune to traitors. But its ranks are starting to become more substantial. Among those who presented evidence of the state at the Lamezia Terme trial is a relative of Mancuso. Several dozen informants in the case come from the ‘ndrangheta, but others are from the old ranks of Cosa Nostra in Sicily and can be called to testify.
Inundated with receipts from cocaine trafficking, the ‘ndrangheta swallowed hotels, restaurants, pharmacies, car dealerships and other businesses across Italy, especially in Rome and the affluent north, criminal investigations have revealed.
The shopping spree in recent years has spread strongly across Europe, as’ ndrangheta sought to launder illicit recipes, but also to make “clean” money by running legitimate businesses, including in the tourism and hospitality sectors, according to the researchers.