Bloody Christmas: because the 'ndrine like to kill during the holidaysThe clans live on rites and traditions. Not only to maintain a high sense of fascination with affiliates, but also to bring down one's enemies. And hit their surviving relatives, who will forever link the holidays to the memory of a loss
Investigations
Claudio Cordova
December 26, 2021
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San Luca
A riddled road sign in San Luca
A feud that began during the Carnival period. A murder that took place on Christmas day. A massacre in a symbolic day of summer holidays. Nothing is done by chance. Holidays. Which, however, must become days of blood. And remain, forever, days of mourning . In the 'Ndrangheta, symbology counts. It matters a lot. The 'Ndrangheta thrives on rituals and traditions. Not only to keep the sense of fascination high towards affiliates, but also to hit enemies. This explains the numerous crimes that coincide with the holidays.
The feuds
The feuds are wars that are established between clans of the same country or from different countries. Wars that can last for several years and that spare no one, even if time passes, inexorably. The 'Ndrangheta never forgets: "In the province of Reggio Calabria the feud of Cimino caused almost fifty deaths , that of Cittanova sixty-five , that of Laureana di Borrello thirty , including a nine-year-old girl , the Botticella feud claimed sixty victims. Other feuds with dozens and dozens of deaths occurred in Gioia Tauro, Sant'Ilario, Siderno, Roghudi, Bova, Locri », write Mario Andrigo and Lele Rozza in the volume The roots of the 'ndrangheta for Nutrimenti Edizioni.
The feud of San Luca
The most famous one, however, reached its peak on August 15, 2007 in Duisburg, Germany, when six of them remained on German soil, riddled with shots. A massacre that is part of the very bloody San Luca feud which began in 1991 for a banal Carnival joke. Historically, in fact, the long bloody one is started on 10 February 1991 , when a group of young people linked to the Strangio and Nirta clans, called "Versu", on the occasion of the Carnival festivities, threw eggs against the ARCI recreational club, managed by Domenico Pelle , one of the "Gambazza". A disgrace. Made even more serious by the fact that those eggs dirty, among other things, also the car of one of the Vottari.
It all starts that way. Young people are also punished with a loud dose of "beating" as they say in the jargon. Everything seems to end there. But, in reality, it is only the beginning, because subsequently, in the name of that feeling of revenge which is sacred in the 'Ndrangheta, another group of young people from the Nirta-Strangio , who became aware of what had happened, met an affiliate of the Vottari . Frightened, he began to shoot, killing two young people of the group, Francesco Strangio , 20 years old, Domenico Nirta, 19, and injuring two others. Given the extreme gravity of the action, the Vottari clan decided that the perpetrator of the murders would have to leave San Luca and the neighboring towns forever. However, he will be killed in the municipality of Bovalino , where he had found temporary refuge. The long trail of blood is now triggered .
The murder of Maria Strangio
A slaughter that seems to have remained silent for some years. Until the new explosion, fifteen years after the first event. And, even in this case, the date has a certain meaning. On December 25, 2006, Maria Strangio, wife of Giovanni Luca Nirta, the real target of the assassins, was killed, who, instead, was saved . The feud thus begins again after a long period of pause. Giovanni Luca Nirta has always professed innocence with respect to the accusations that indicate him as a charismatic leader of the 'Ndrangheta.
In various interviews he portrayed himself as a humble farmer. Indeed, in one of the raids in Calabria, even the mass media scientist Klaus Davi , for years municipal councilor in San Luca, met the alleged boss. Who made him sit in the house, offering him a coffee. Without, however, wanting to talk about 'Ndrangheta. Yet, according to the investigators, he is an apical subject of the 'Ndrangheta of San Luca. About a year ago he finished serving the 12-year prison sentence for mafia association remedied in the “Fehida” trial . Which has reconstructed the very last episodes of the San Luca feud.
The Duisburg massacre
The massacre of Duisburg is the answer to the murder of Maria Strangio , fortuitous but still washed in blood. Among the dead in Germany was also a young man, just eighteen, Tommaso Venturi , who was found wearing a burnt holy card of St. Michael the Archangel, probably a sign of the recent affiliation , which occurred in conjunction with his coming of age, celebrated in the night.
A massacre that, over the years, Calabrian investigators will reconstruct, leading to definitive convictions. Including that of Giovanni Strangio , punished with life imprisonment because he was considered the mind of the commando who went into action on the day of August 15th. Strangio will be arrested on March 12, 2009 in Diemen , a small town near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.
The Bruzzese murder
Dates that matter. Which become scarring. We are in 2018. Marcello Bruzzese , 51 years old of Calabrian origin, was also murdered on Christmas day . Shot in the garage under the house, in a small street in the historic center of Pesaro. An ambush in pure mafia style, perhaps a warning to hit the brother of Girolamo Biagio Bruzzese , 'Ndranghetista, who became a collaborator of justice in 2003 after attempting to kill the boss: his testimonies allowed the magistrates to know the links between the clan Crea and some local politicians.
The Bruzzese murder in Pesaro
Just a few weeks ago, the judiciary and the police made some arrests, convinced that they had closed the circle on the matter. It took the work of three DDAs, Reggio Calabria, Brescia and Ancona to reconstruct what happened in the quiet Pesaro, indicated as a "protected location". The victim was the brother of the collaborator of justice Girolamo Biagio Bruzzese, formerly a member of the Crea clan of Rizziconi (RC) and from whom he disassociated himself in 2003 after attempting to attack the life of Teodoro Crea, head of the clan, known as the "Bull".
The meaning
In all cases, therefore, the dates are not chosen at random. Remaining on the San Luca feud: the beginning, Carnival of 1991, the murder of Maria Strangio, Christmas 2006, the Duisburg massacre, August 2007 . All events occurred in correspondence of some days of celebration. «According to the ethnologist Vito Teti, revenge in an archaic universe represented the attempt to restore order upset by a bloodshed», write Nicola Gratteri and Antonio Nicaso in La malapianta .
«In the traditional horizon, the rule of blood that calls blood has often been adopted, even in an instrumental way, to legitimize bloody behavior in the 'Ndrangheta. It is therefore possible to understand why on feast days , or on days dedicated to the dead, when the memory is more oppressive and fundamental, sometimes remembrance behaviors are used. In the logic of feeding the memory through pain, the revenge practiced in festive moments (in a Mediterranean context but also in many other traditional societies) takes on a ritual and highly symbolic value "write the prosecutor of Catanzaro and the journalist and expert of ' ndrangheta.
Symbology and religion
Symbology, especially if it intersects with religion , has a predominant role in the behaviors, even of a criminal nature, enacted by the 'Ndrangheta. In the strategies of crime, in customs, nothing is done by chance . The mafia - and, in particular, the 'Ndrangheta - chooses to kill especially on relevant dates that often coincide with religious holidays. Or on important occasions for the subject to be eliminated. It is no coincidence, for example, that many murders take place on the victim's name day or birthday . Mafia killers sometimes commit their own murders in sacred places. As in the killing of Domenico Vallelunga , the boss of the homonymous gang of Serra San Bruno, Vibo Valentia,assassinated in front of the Sanctuary of the Saints Cosmo and Damiano, in Riace .
It is just one of many possible examples. Crimes, killings, aggravated by the fact of having profaned a place of worship, of having stained the consecrated land with blood. Facts, obviously, in full antithesis with the mantle of religiosity with which organized crime is often and willingly covered . And so, therefore, also happens for the so-called cases of "white shotgun" , in which a person is killed. And his body made to disappear. Buried in some distant countryside, or dissolved in acid. One way is the other so that families cannot mourn their relative . In addition to death, therefore, there is another type of punishment, equally cruel, for the survivors .
https://icalabresi.it/inchieste/natale-di-sangue-perche-la-ndrangheta-uccide-nelle-feste/
