Spotlight 26: Living among powerful mafia clans

How has Calabria changed since the arrests made for the 'ndrangheta maxi trial?

Hi and welcome back to the 26th issue of Spotlight, a fortnightly collection of news, articles, and events about organised crime and corruption curated by Firm UK.

Every two weeks a collective of experts, academics, and volunteers will select a few relevant articles and/or events that will help you to understand our society under the hood.

Oftentimes, when it comes to organised crime, the spotlight is on powerful criminals, important trials, journalists’ investigations, arrests and so on. Thus, common people living amongst criminals, who share the same hometown or even went to school together but have really nothing to do with the criminal world, do not make the headlines. In a powerful France 24 piece, we learn what is life in places so often forgotten for being also the cities or towns in which common people get on with their daily lives, despite the constant presence of the mafia.

We would also like to thank you all for taking part in our latest event: the book launch of “Ports, Crime & Security” (25h November 2021). If you would like to rewatch the event, or if you did not have the chance to attend it, you can do so via this link.

Spotlight will take a break for the upcoming Christmas holidays. Whether you will celebrate or not, we would like to wish you a nice time and we will be glad to return in January 2022.

We hope you enjoy Spotlight. And if you like it, please share it with your network and invite them to subscribe.

Thank you!

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Living among the mafia blurs lines in Southern Italy

Two years ago, thousands of people in the Calabrian city of Vibo Valentia took to the streets on Christmas Eve morning to celebrate a massive police sweep that netted hundreds of alleged mafia members.

This article goes deeper into the streets of the Calabrian city to understand what changed, if anything, after the arrests and the beginning of the maxi-trial, questioning how people live in a city where mafia clans are the centre of everyone’s attention.

"Vibo is a sad city, washed-up, that makes people ugly and doesn't inspire them to give their best," is how blogger and journalist Argentino Serraino describes his home town. And despite encouraging stances in the population, not everyone in Vibo is convinced the state has their back.

"They've ruined my life,"

Rocco Tavella said, of authorities who kept him behind bars for five days after the 2019 sweep. Similarly to a woman named Paola that notices

"You can't lock someone up for just hearing something, or being seen with someone,"

she said, complaining that prosecutors had gone over the top in not limiting arrests to senior bosses.

Ireland Seizures Highlight Growing Role in Cocaine Trade

Irish authorities have made a string of significant cocaine seizures this year, amid signs the island is becoming increasingly important to European and Latin American traffickers as both a consumption market and transit point.

Police sources told the Irish Times only a small number of Irish crime syndicates could organize such a smuggling operation, including the country’s most prominent drug trafficking family: the Kinahan clan.

“The Irish Police are taking connections between Irish criminals and South America seriously. In February this year [the Irish police] appointed a full-time liaison officer based in Colombia,”

said Eamon Dillon, an Irish crime journalist.

21st Century Mafia: How the ’Ndrangheta became the scourge of Italy… and beyond

As the Camorra and Cosa Nostra have receded in strength in the past three decades, the ’Ndrangheta have established themselves a national power in Italy, migrating to the economic and industrial powerhouse of the north from poverty-stricken Calabria – the toe of the Italian boot kicking Sicily. So what is the Italian Mafia now, who is doing what, and how?

This article puts together well-known sources, including Nando Dalla Chiesa’s ‘Passaggio a Nord’ book, and interviews (including Roberto Saviano, Saverio Lodato and Prof Federico Varese, FIRM UK Associate) to not only discuss the ‘ndrangheta, but also other mafia-type groups in Italy, including Nigerian Clans, to reflect on violence, mafia power and evolution of organised crime in Italy.

Professor Varese says:

“The idea that the ’Ndrangheta doesn’t kill is clearly awry. The Mafia has to kill, that is their business. They do try to keep violence at a low level, especially outside their own territory. But the threat of violence is always there, it’s just a question of using it wisely. No one wants internal wars or to kill prosecutors if this can be avoided. Usually, violence is a sign of failure or weakness.”

Also, he adds “Italian politicians should do more: the Mafia has dropped off the political agenda.”

Dead dolphins, extortion, bullets in Italy's mafia 'maxi trial’

These are the stories recounted since January by dozens of ‘Ndrangheta members turned state witnesses in Italy's largest anti-mafia trial in three decades, covering everything from intimidation to vote-buying, and drug trafficking to murder.

The 'Ndrangheta, Italy's most powerful organised crime syndicate, is in the crosshairs of the "maxi-trial" - named Rinascita-Scott - against 355 defendants held in the southern region of Calabria, the group's home turf.

This article summarises, for an international audience, how the trial is going. The court has heard of ambulances moving drugs, water supplies diverted to marijuana crops and drowned migrants buried without coffins after rigged public tenders.

Informant Mantella, a high-ranking member who confessed to numerous murders, said 70,000 euros ($79,000)were paid to release him from prison to a medical clinic where "I did what I wanted", underscoring the 'Ndrangheta's financial clout.

Mantella and another state witness also testified that the 'Ndrangheta paid 50,000 euros to former senator and lawyer, Giancarlo Pittelli, who protests his innocence, for trial fixing. The trial continues.

The “cocaine collectors” retrieving smuggled drugs in Rotterdam

Who are the young men employed by criminal gangs to retrieve the drugs from among freight arriving in the port of Rotterdam from Latin America?

This article sheds light on so far an understudied phenomenon: the so-called cocaine collectors. Collectors make around 2,000 euros (£1,680) for every kilo of cocaine they extract but unless they are caught red-handed, they only risk a fine of less than 100 euro (£84) for trespass.

It seems that some collectors even carry cash so that they can pay penalties on the spot in the event that they are stopped.

Books, podcasts & more

1. The 'agricultural mafia' taking over Brazil's Amazon rainforest - [VIDEO - 15 minutes]
   Encouraged by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and local authorities who want to see the development of agribusiness, an "agricultural mafia" is taking over the Amazon rainforest. In the Brazilian state of Rondonia, organised groups set up camps for small farmers – sometimes the size of a city – within national forest parks that are supposed to be protected by law or on land stolen from indigenous peoples. AFP reporters investigated this "agricultural mafia", from the small farmer who is promised a patch of land and a future, to the politicians pulling the strings.

2. The end of the Yakuza in Japan? An ageing mafia fails to attract young people [VIDEO - 5 mins]
   The Yakuza have long been one of the biggest criminal organisations in the world. At the height of their power in the 1960s, the Japanese Yakuza had more than 180,000 members. This Japanese mafia was rich, much-feared, and virtually untouchable. But now their numbers, money and power have dwindled. There are only 23,000 Yakuzas left today, and they are older and poorer.

3. Italian mafias in Europe: From text to context
   Watch the panel session on the presence and activities of the Italian mafias in Europe at the latest 24h Global Organised Crime conference. Francesco Calderoni, Professor of Criminology, Transcrime Catholic University of Milan will present the topic The Italian mafias abroad: evidence from Italian anti-mafia agencies reports 2000-2016, followed by Anna Sergi, Professor of Criminology University of Essex and FIRM UK associate & Alice Rizzuti, Research Associate, University of Hull, who will host Mafiaround-Europe: reflections from the CRIME project on mafia mobility and law enforcement cooperation in Europe. This session will conclude with a presentation by Zora Hauser, Research Fellow, University of Oxford and FIRM UK associate on “How Crime gets Legal: the ‘Ndrangheta in the German Economy”.

4. Towards a ‘blue’ criminology: How should we study transnational organised crime at sea?
   Also part of the 24h Global Organised Crime conference, watch the panel “Towards a ‘blue’ criminology: How should we study transnational organised crime at sea?”

   A talk by Professor Tim Edmunds, Dr. Mercedes Rosello, Professor Anna Sergi, FIRM UK associates talking about ports and complex criminality, Nigel South and Dr. Scott Edwards.