https://www.corrieredellacalabria.i...gente-non-ha-ancora-capito-cose-davvero/relationship and new concepts
The 'ndrangheta? "People still haven't understood what it really is"
Beniamino Fazio, director of the Catanzaro DIA, pushes for a "civil knowledge" of the phenomenon. "It is no longer just about clans and criminal gangs"
Published: 06/06/2025 – 18:58
CATANZARO «We no longer want to reduce everything to a mere list of the clans present in Calabria, the 'ndrangheta is now something different» . This is how Beniamino Fazio, director of the DIA of Catanzaro, begins while illustrating the latest report which this time includes the whole of 2024. And he also explains why the location chosen this year is not the headquarters of the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate in the capital city, but the Chamber of Commerce. Why? «Because this is the place designated for the economic development of businesses. In Calabria this economic development is “held back” to use a euphemism by the 'ndrangheta», explained Fazio. And so «we must underline the business-entrepreneurial vocation of the 'ndrangheta, capable of silently inserting itself into the economic fabric, constantly changing shape to escape pursuers». According to Fazio, today, even trivializing the concepts, the 'ndrangheta is no longer just a series of criminal gangs and articulations «as people think because today the 'ndrangheta is not exclusively present where there are manifestations of violence but is present in the social and economic life of citizens».
Locals and gangs "trivialize the concept"
The concept of the 'ndrangheta formed by clans is for Fazio a concept to be overcome because «that is the last link, the most down-to-earth and that is only a small component of a criminal organization that is one of the strongest in the world, this should not be forgotten because if we talk about "'ndrangheta premises then we trivialize the concept».
According to the director of the DIA of Catanzaro, therefore, «there is a lack of real knowledge of the phenomenon, we are reduced only and exclusively to the knowledge of the criminal on duty. What is not known, however, is the business-entrepreneurial vocation of the 'ndrangheta and, above all, the upper levels that we have been identifying for 30 years now». For Fazio «there are prominent elements of the various criminal organizations, therefore 'ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra and Camorra that together do not make occasional alliances, but have had stable relationships for more than 30 years. Therefore we can speak not of an organization, but of real criminal systems, because they have stable relationships over time».
The "civil knowledge" of the 'ndrangheta
Starting from a broader sensitivity and “civil knowledge” of Calabrian organized crime, according to Fazio. «I want to make people aware of the 'ndrangheta and therefore this phenomenon», also explaining how infiltration into the economic fabric occurs in many cases now.
«People do not perceive that perhaps the baker down the street starts a commercial activity but, in addition to the mere and simple giving of money, he is forced to provide material such as flour, he is forced to provide labor and, in that case, if he were in economic difficulty, he must resort to usury. Money that obviously the 'ndrangheta lends without any particular guarantee, and therefore the entrepreneur is slowly swallowed up», explains Fazio. Who has the bakery down the street and who buys bread every day, do they perceive the existence of the 'ndrangheta? No. «The problem is this, people do not perceive it for what it really is. They only identify it as a sort of criminal gang». ( g.curcio@corrierecal.it )
