Posted By: Strax
'Ndrangheta Spreading In The United States - 06/19/12 01:21 PM
Top anti-Mafia prosecutor in Italy Nicola Gratteri says that recent information from operations against the ‘Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia it Italy show it is quickly spreading in the United States. The Ndrangheta is now one of the world’s most powerful organized crime groups and making obscene amounts of money by controlling the drug trade in Europe. But now the Calabrian mafia is becoming intrenched in Canada , Australia , and the United States with little trouble from law enforcement.
“Nicola Gratteri”
Gratteri says the Ndrangheta is particularly operating in the United States in New York and Florida. A new route in the Ndrangheta drug trade has been uncovered and it is centered in New York City built around the ability to gain access to cocaine shipped in by the Mexican drug cartels. Many mob insiders also believe that the Ndrangheta clans in New York and Quebec Canada are responsible for the Mafia war in Canada against the Rizzuto crime family. The Montreal mafia war is over control of the drug trade there and has claimed the lives of the son and father of reputed Montreal mob boss Vito Rizzuto and former Bonanno crime family boss Salvatore Montagna among others. It is believed that Montagna aligned himself with the Ndrangheta in a play to take power of the underworld in Montreal from the Rizzuto family.
Gratteri says that the war against the ‘Ndrahgheta is unwinnable. The Ndrangheta has a large number of clever and determined members who’s motto is secrecy. They don’t have a godfather or single leader at the top like other standard mafia groups so no arrest can can really threaten to bring down or cripple the organization. Also it may be even tougher for the United States to battle the Ndrangheta at this time because resources to fight organized crime have been limited in a effort to concentrate more on terrorism.
When Nicola Gratteri, one of the most respected anti-mafia prosecutors in the world, landed in Rome last Friday, he had just found out about a plot to kill him.
A few days earlier, a mafia boss-turned-state witness had confessed that a prominent family belonging to the Calabrian ‘ndrangheta—the richest and most powerful crime organization in Italy, and perhaps in the world—had recently purchased 36 pounds of plastic explosives, with which they’d planned to blow up Gratteri and his security escort. According to the Mafioso’s testimony, the explosives had already arrived in Calabria, the region at the toe of Italy’s boot that serves as a jumping-off point for Sicily.
This is not the first time the 46-year-old Gratteri has received such a threat. In the 1990s, an unknown assailant fired shots at his fiancée’s door, then phoned her with a warning: “Don’t marry Gratteri because you’ll marry a dead man.” In 2005, authorities intercepted a conversation between a mafia boss and his son-in-law that revealed how deeply the crime syndicates hate the prosecutor. “Do we have to blow up the security as well?” asked the son-in-law. “Yes,” the boss answered. “Why all this blood?” asked the son-in-law. “Because he ruined us; he brought disasters,” said the boss. Shortly thereafter, the boss was arrested.
The ‘ndrangheta were apparently so intent upon bumping off Gratteri that they were willing to risk a subsequent crackdown by the State, says a qualified source in the Calabrian district attorney’s office. “They know that blowing up a prosecutor would force the State to react, as when Judges [Giovanni] Falcone and [Paolo] Borsellino were killed by the Sicilians,” says the source. “However, this [latest death] threat seems real.”
The constant threat of revenge from the ‘ndrangheta requires Gratteri to employ 15 bodyguards and constantly move locations. “I go to sleep around 10 p.m. every night and wake up at 2:30 am. That’s my favorite moment of the day—it’s quiet, and nobody bothers me. That’s when I do the real work, until 6 or 7 a.m.,” he says. “The rest of the day, I spend trying to avoid attacks. In this position, one has to be very careful—you have way more enemies than friends, and not only among the Mafiosi.”
While the prosecutor seems to genuinely enjoy his profession—“I love this job with all my heart … when I got married, I asked the priest, who happened to be my uncle, to hurry, because I wanted to go back to work”—and while his mood is generally upbeat, Gatteri says the lifestyle has taken its toll. “I’ve been disappointed so many times by the betrayal of people close to me that now it is very hard for someone to really get to me,” he says.
“I don’t spend a second in Calabria without security, and even then, I know that the day the ‘ndrangheta decides to kill you, there’s no way you can avoid it.”
Born to a poor farming family and raised in the city of Reggio Calabria, Gratteri grew up with many kids who ultimately became ‘ndrangheta members--but he says that he always had a clear idea of what was right or wrong. His father “taught me to always share what I have with others,” Gratteri says. “Every winter, we killed two pigs: one for us, and one to feed our neighbors, who were much poorer than we were. They didn’t even have shoes to wear.”
Later, when forced to arrest some of his childhood playmates who had gone into the ‘ndrangheta, Gratteria says simply: “It was a difficult thing to do, but there was no other possible choice.” Some of them, he says, “were clearly going to become Mafiosi: they were rude, mean, and they had been breathing in the ‘ndrangheta culture all their lives, at home.”
Family, Gratteri believes, is the one element that makes a difference in a child’s trajectory. “If I grew up in an ‘ndrangheta family, today I would be a capo-mafia,” he says. “No matter what your nature, kids always try to emulate their parents. For me, this meant work hard, get good grades in school, respect the teacher and help others. I have never seen the child of a Mafioso become a normal person.”
Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...a-gratteri.html
“Nicola Gratteri”
Gratteri says the Ndrangheta is particularly operating in the United States in New York and Florida. A new route in the Ndrangheta drug trade has been uncovered and it is centered in New York City built around the ability to gain access to cocaine shipped in by the Mexican drug cartels. Many mob insiders also believe that the Ndrangheta clans in New York and Quebec Canada are responsible for the Mafia war in Canada against the Rizzuto crime family. The Montreal mafia war is over control of the drug trade there and has claimed the lives of the son and father of reputed Montreal mob boss Vito Rizzuto and former Bonanno crime family boss Salvatore Montagna among others. It is believed that Montagna aligned himself with the Ndrangheta in a play to take power of the underworld in Montreal from the Rizzuto family.
Gratteri says that the war against the ‘Ndrahgheta is unwinnable. The Ndrangheta has a large number of clever and determined members who’s motto is secrecy. They don’t have a godfather or single leader at the top like other standard mafia groups so no arrest can can really threaten to bring down or cripple the organization. Also it may be even tougher for the United States to battle the Ndrangheta at this time because resources to fight organized crime have been limited in a effort to concentrate more on terrorism.
When Nicola Gratteri, one of the most respected anti-mafia prosecutors in the world, landed in Rome last Friday, he had just found out about a plot to kill him.
A few days earlier, a mafia boss-turned-state witness had confessed that a prominent family belonging to the Calabrian ‘ndrangheta—the richest and most powerful crime organization in Italy, and perhaps in the world—had recently purchased 36 pounds of plastic explosives, with which they’d planned to blow up Gratteri and his security escort. According to the Mafioso’s testimony, the explosives had already arrived in Calabria, the region at the toe of Italy’s boot that serves as a jumping-off point for Sicily.
This is not the first time the 46-year-old Gratteri has received such a threat. In the 1990s, an unknown assailant fired shots at his fiancée’s door, then phoned her with a warning: “Don’t marry Gratteri because you’ll marry a dead man.” In 2005, authorities intercepted a conversation between a mafia boss and his son-in-law that revealed how deeply the crime syndicates hate the prosecutor. “Do we have to blow up the security as well?” asked the son-in-law. “Yes,” the boss answered. “Why all this blood?” asked the son-in-law. “Because he ruined us; he brought disasters,” said the boss. Shortly thereafter, the boss was arrested.
The ‘ndrangheta were apparently so intent upon bumping off Gratteri that they were willing to risk a subsequent crackdown by the State, says a qualified source in the Calabrian district attorney’s office. “They know that blowing up a prosecutor would force the State to react, as when Judges [Giovanni] Falcone and [Paolo] Borsellino were killed by the Sicilians,” says the source. “However, this [latest death] threat seems real.”
The constant threat of revenge from the ‘ndrangheta requires Gratteri to employ 15 bodyguards and constantly move locations. “I go to sleep around 10 p.m. every night and wake up at 2:30 am. That’s my favorite moment of the day—it’s quiet, and nobody bothers me. That’s when I do the real work, until 6 or 7 a.m.,” he says. “The rest of the day, I spend trying to avoid attacks. In this position, one has to be very careful—you have way more enemies than friends, and not only among the Mafiosi.”
While the prosecutor seems to genuinely enjoy his profession—“I love this job with all my heart … when I got married, I asked the priest, who happened to be my uncle, to hurry, because I wanted to go back to work”—and while his mood is generally upbeat, Gatteri says the lifestyle has taken its toll. “I’ve been disappointed so many times by the betrayal of people close to me that now it is very hard for someone to really get to me,” he says.
“I don’t spend a second in Calabria without security, and even then, I know that the day the ‘ndrangheta decides to kill you, there’s no way you can avoid it.”
Born to a poor farming family and raised in the city of Reggio Calabria, Gratteri grew up with many kids who ultimately became ‘ndrangheta members--but he says that he always had a clear idea of what was right or wrong. His father “taught me to always share what I have with others,” Gratteri says. “Every winter, we killed two pigs: one for us, and one to feed our neighbors, who were much poorer than we were. They didn’t even have shoes to wear.”
Later, when forced to arrest some of his childhood playmates who had gone into the ‘ndrangheta, Gratteria says simply: “It was a difficult thing to do, but there was no other possible choice.” Some of them, he says, “were clearly going to become Mafiosi: they were rude, mean, and they had been breathing in the ‘ndrangheta culture all their lives, at home.”
Family, Gratteri believes, is the one element that makes a difference in a child’s trajectory. “If I grew up in an ‘ndrangheta family, today I would be a capo-mafia,” he says. “No matter what your nature, kids always try to emulate their parents. For me, this meant work hard, get good grades in school, respect the teacher and help others. I have never seen the child of a Mafioso become a normal person.”
Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...a-gratteri.html