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In front of the camera, the president of the court, Judge Brígida Cavasino, center, flanked by Judges Claudia Caputo, left, and Germana Radice, reads the sentence of a maxi-trial against other people accused of belonging to the Italian regime. ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate, one of the world’s most powerful, largest and richest drug trafficking teams, in Lamezia Terme in southern Italy. The trial began just about 3 years ago in the southern region of Calabria, where the mafia organization was for the first time based around.
LAMEZIA TERME, Italy >> An Italian court on Monday sentenced another 207 people to a total of 2,100 years in criminal prison for fees similar to those of their club in the Italian organized crime syndicate ‘ndrangheta, one of the most powerful, widespread and richest drug markets in the world. trafficking groups.
It took more than an hour and 40 minutes to read aloud the court’s lengthy verdict, which included the acquittal of 131 other defendants. The drama unfolded in a courtroom in the southern region of Calabria, where the mafia organization was initially headquartered.
The ‘ndrangheta has been quietly gaining strength in Italy and the Sicilian mafia has lost influence and now has a virtual monopoly on cocaine imports into Europe, according to anti-mafia prosecutors who conducted the investigation in southern Italy. The organization also has bases in North and South America and is active in Africa, Italian prosecutors say, and senior ‘ndrangheta figures have been arrested in recent years in Europe, Brazil and Lebanon.
The defendants had been charged with crimes including drug and arms trafficking, extortion and mafia association, a term used in Italy’s penal code to refer to members of organized criminal groups. Others have been accused of collusion with the ‘ndrangheta without being members.
The fees are the result of an investigation into 12 clans linked to a convicted ‘ndrangheta leader. The central figure, Luigi Mancuso, served 19 years with an Italian criminal for leading what investigators founded as one of the ‘ndrangheta’s toughest crime families. in the city of Vibo Valentia.
Vincenzo Capomolla, deputy prosecutor of Catanzaro, said the overall case of the prosecutors stood with the convictions and showed the ‘ndrangheta’s stranglehold on Vibo Valentia.
“The infiltration of the criminal organization in the province of Vibo Valentia is so deep and so widespread, so alarming, so disturbing, that I think you can notice that no aspect of the life of the socio-economic fabric of the province has been observed. This is not conditioned by the ability of this harmful criminal organization to intimidate it,” he said.
Giuseppe Di Renzo, a lawyer for several defendants, said, however, that more than a third of the original defendants were completely acquitted, while others were found guilty on some charges.
He criticized the sheer number and disparity of defendants, saying they showed there was no common thread in the prosecutors’ case. But the former Catanzaro attorney general who presented the investigation, Nicola Gratteri, said trials against the mafia have to span a wide net because of the very nature of how criminal syndicates operate, infiltrating giant sectors of society.
The trial took place in a specially built high-security bunker. The bunker, which is part of a retail park in Lamezia Terme, is so gigantic that video screens were anchored to the ceiling so participants could follow the process.
Based almost exclusively on blood ties, the ‘ndrangheta has been substantially immune to defectors for decades, but the ranks of those who have resorted to state testing are growing. In the ongoing trial, among them is a relative of Mancuso.
In this case, several dozen informants came from the ‘ndrangheta, while others belonged to Sicily’s Cosa Nostra.
Despite the enormous number of defendants, the trial is the largest in Italy involving alleged mafia members.
In 1986, 475 alleged members of the Sicilian mafia were tried in a bunker built in Palermo. The process resulted in more than three hundred convictions and 19 life sentences. This trial has exposed many of the brutal and murderous ways of the most sensible people on the island. mafia bosses, added to the sensational murders that bloodied the Palermo region during years of power struggles.
By contrast, the trial against the ‘ndrangheta sought convictions and sentences for alleged acts of collusion between mafiosi and local politicians, officials, businessmen and members of secret lodges, to show how deeply rooted the union is in Calabria.
Flooded with profits from the cocaine trade, the ‘ndrangheta swallowed hotels, restaurants, pharmacies, car dealerships and other businesses across Italy, specifically in Rome and the country’s wealthy north, criminal investigations have revealed.
The buying frenzy spread across Europe as the union sought to launder illicit sources of income while making “clean” money by running valid businesses, specifically in the tourism and hospitality sectors, investigators said.
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