In those days Ndrangheta earned hundreds of billions of lires, because the weak Italian authorities always paid the ransom ! A strong state should never pay ransom.
In 1990 was made a law to freeze the assets of the families of the kidnappeds. But wasnt the State that paid the ransoms,was the kidnapped people families.
The State was involved in the negotiations, who came up with the money isn't important and some other people outside the mafia also profited. Such a business model would never happen in a developed western country. Italy in those years wasn't a stable democracy a lot of (political) violence, the kidnappings were part of it..
