http://www.antimafiaduemila.com/hom...caso-dal-suo-libro-e-nata-bad-blood.html'' Camorra and 'Ndrangheta partners in business''
by Giuseppe Tallino
The interview with Antonio Nicaso, professor of social history of organized crime at Queen's University. He is among the top experts of 'Ndrangheta
'Follow the money' is no longer enough. To intercept and defeat the mafias, we need more. Criminal organizations have evolved: they have created an international network that moves in silence, sub-track. And to recycle and invest the dirty money exploit 'normative paradises', legal advisors and professionals of high finance: it is the scenario that has traced Antonio Nicaso , professor of social history of organized crime at Queen's University. He is among the top experts of 'Ndrangheta. He has written numerous books with Nicola Gratteri , procurator of the Republic of Catanzaro.
Professor, Nicola Schiavone, neo-repentant of the Casalesi, argued that the current fragility of his (former) clan is likely to open the doors of Casertano to other criminal organizations.
The presence of the 'Ndrangheta in Campania is historically proven: already with Domenico Tripodo has had good relations with the Camorra. Relationships started at the time of cigarette smuggling.
Now, instead, what kind of contact is there between the two systems?
There is a synergistic relationship destined to increase.
The 'ndrangheta is active above all in Terra di Lavoro and in Salerno, but in Campania it will not expand to become territorial government: I tend to exclude it. In Sicily, for example, it is expanding in the areas of Vittoria and Ragusa because there is the fruit and vegetable market. And then we must also remember that the 'Ndrangheta provides cocaine to Camorra and Cosa Nostra. The hypothesis that the local dying mafias are replaced by external gangs is founded?
We must not underestimate these organizations when they are with their backs to the wall. That they are not militarily strong as in the past is confirmed by the facts. But I am able to regenerate myself: I would be well advised to sign their obituary. Erroneously we are led to believe that the mafias exist when they shoot. And instead it is when they do not they are more dangerous: they assert themselves in other forms.
No substitution, therefore, but only collaboration.
A criminal partnership is already underway and will continue to take root in Italy with the involvement of Albanian mafias: they will become the armed wing of historic organizations. For example, they will take care of the transport of cocaine. The traditional groups, on the other hand, will focus on territorial government: they will try to infiltrate institutions, to corrupt them. In short, they will entrust dirty business to emerging structures.
The 'ndrangheta, as already pointed out, is among the main importers of narcotics in Europe. On the littoral Domizio, however, there is another transnational criminal gang that is able to get large quantities of drugs in Italy: I talk about the Nigerian mafia.
One of the most important routes traveled by cocaine starts from Brazil, from the port of Santos, and reaches Central Africa, where there are storage depots controlled by the 'ndrangheta. The Nigerian mafia manages to transfer cocaine from Africa to the Old Continent and does so by agreeing with the 'ndranghetist brokers: they treat prices in the Colombian forest and in Peru.
In practice there is a kind of subcontract: the 'ndrine delegate to the Nigerian mafia a part of the process that the narcotics must take to get to Italy.
Exactly, because they control the routes, which are then the same ones used for illegal immigration. More than clashing now the various criminal groups are willing to do 'network'.
Albanesi e 'ndrangheta, for example, have become partners in many countries of the world. First there was synergy between the Calabrians and the Serbian-Montenegrin mafia. And now they also collaborate with the Nigerian one. The only winning strategy for them is to move on track, to avoid violence. The Duisburg massacre was a boomerang: it made known a phenomenon that was considered marginal.
The mafia has become a global phenomenon.
It's true: the mafias have globalized, but the Antimafia is not.
The crime of mafia association does not appear in the penal code of various countries.
In the Common Law the associative crime is not considered: because it is contrary to culture and the legal system. Participation in criminal activity is punished, but not affiliation. Abroad there are many difficulties. For one thing: it is complicated to apply measures of personal and patrimonial preventions when there is not a law that can identify the mafia of a person.
The mafias make a network between them. But in some cases they have been able to change their structure to creep into other groups recognized by civil society. The Calabrian gangs have created the Saint to affiliate some of its members to Freemasonry.
When I explain the mafias to my students, I use the formula of water. The two hydrogen atoms represent violence, a factor common to all criminal organizations. The difference is the atom of oxygen which is the relationship with power, the external competition, the collusions. The mafias, without the relationship with the majority of a country, with representatives of politics, could not resist.
They need the 'power' made up.
The mafias have never been revolutionary, but reactionary and phenomena of ruling class: they are the armed wing of power. In the 1960s, when funds arrived for the South, the 'ndrangheta changes the nature of its structure: it passes from a fabric based on the friendships functional to the bond of blood. Become familistic: relatives, cousins ​​and brothers-in-law begin to affiliate. Feels the need to sit down with the power, to enter into relationships with important exponents of finance and law enforcement. For the 'ndrangheta it was a turning point.
A sort of registration to the tennis club.
The analogy is effective. Call back to what were once the gentlemen's circles, where lawyers and judges sat. The Saint is born with the same reasoning: allows some 'ndranghetisti, initially 33, one for each important family, to enter the elitist club.
Before establishing relations with the 'power', before creating links with foreign organizations, from the south, quickly, have spread their tentacles to the north.
We need to sweep away the culturalist interpretations of the phenomenon: the mafias are not the product of a mentality of the territory. They did not reach the north because of political confinement or forced stay. In the north they moved and rooted because they guaranteed the same conditions they offered in the south: cheap labor and services at bargain prices, like the Casalesi in Modenese. Do you want to spill, recycle, transport inert? We do it, the cosche answered. They were looking for someone to minimize costs and maximize profits. And they found him in the mafia.
Sometimes there are democratic short circuits. It is rare but it happens that to govern "new" forces, at least on paper, far from the old logic.
They look at the national level, but not with great care. The mafias focus on local phenomena. If they have to focus on politics, they prefer to control the municipal administrations and not the election of a representative in Parliament. Exploiting the nominees, they create companies with German partners, now especially Eastern Europe, in order to run into the alternative energy business and other projects that are easily financed by the EU. But these are procedures managed at the local level, not in Brussels.
But in some cases they still try to interact with those who manage public affairs and high-level business.
Yes, but when we refer to money laundering, we do not have to think about what the Schiavone or Morabito do for action: the organizations exploit professionals in the sector. Lawyers who have studies in international law, accountants and financial advisors manage those delicate moments for the clans. Outside Italy there is an alarming scenario. There are lawyers who even set tariffs to recycle money: the mafias pay between 20 and 25% of the amount they want to "clean" and invest.
To fight them, therefore, 'follow the money'.
Follow the money was a great strategy. But now it is no longer effective. And I explain why: there are banks that have many branches in off-shore countries. Imagine this scenario: The brokers who manage the money of a mafia family deposit 30 million euros in a facility where no one asks me the origin of money. With the money I deposit, I ask another branch, located in a different country, for a loan. If I have to open a restaurant I do not do it with the proceeds of the drug, but with a mortgage. So the bank gives me ten million euros and it does so because he knows I have 30 deposited as collateral. And the investment superficially appears clean.
Exact. For the investigative apparatuses to retrace these steps is a great challenge: today one of the problems to be faced with urgency are the 'normative paradises'. I refer to those countries where there are mild anti-mafia laws. It is difficult to investigate: banks respond to cost-benefit criteria. Bad money drives out the good one: dirty money easily enters the legal economy. This is the strength of the mafias. They have less and less need to use weapons
Where the bullets do not arrive, the money arrives.
And where it's needed Google arrives as well. Some mafiosi in wiretapping boast of what is written about them on the net: "Just type our name to see what we are made of."
One of his books, 'Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War', inspired the TV series of the same name (in Italy the first season is visible on Netflix). Some cinematic interpretations of the 'mafia world' push youngsters to imitate criminal behavior represented in those films. But in Bad Blood the presence of malfeasance is not all-encompassing.
There is indeed a struggle. It is wrong to represent only evil. Some series determine forms of emulation, also because the conflict that the writer creates is between the bad and the worst. And there is no alternative. Instead, every context expresses evil, but also good. To tell only the evil is counterproductive: in those cases it should be the viewer to identify the good independently. But he does not always have the chance to do it. It is necessary to tell the territory's ability to react: when it is said that Sicily has invented the mafia, it must be added that it has also created the Antimafia.
Are we condemned to relate the war to the gangs forever or sooner or later we will succeed in winning it?
If we were to think that Cosa nostra are the Riina and Provenzano we will never win. The strength of the mafia lies in its ability to manage relationships with men who have power. It is used to attack assets, the banks that recycle, the professionals who clean the money. The plot must be hit. The mafias represent a phenomenon that has more than 150 years: they are a ballast for the south.
Casalesi and Cosa Nostra, according to the investigation of the DDA, over the years have managed to place politicians close to them in top positions of the Government.
Calabria, on the other hand, is a border territory. The 'ndrines have taken on another strategy. If we look at the list of loose municipalities we see that the Camorra has Councils infiltrated in Campania, the mafia in Sicily, the 'Ndrangheta, however, in addition to its region of origin, has agencies in Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Piedmont and Lombardy. They have not looked at the highest systems, in parliamentary elections, but at local realities. Also because Parliament has never paid real attention to the fight against organized crime. What we have in terms of anti-mafia legislation are emergency measures. They are the result of emotional reactions related to striking facts. After the massacre of Ciaculli we have the parliamentary anti-mafia commission, with the murders of Pio La Torre and Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa the Rognoni-La Torre law, and following the massacres of Palermo, the awarding legislation. The mafias in Italy are from the Bourbon period, but we introduce measures to fight them only since 1960 and as 'response'. We never sat around a table to deal with the issue in a structural way.
But we have excellent investigators.
In the world we are the leaders in the fight against organized crime, but it is a skill born from the emergency. There has never been a political will to fight criminal organizations, because it would be necessary to face all that support them from the outside.
Today it is said that the most precious currency is information.
And in fact the 'ndrangheta already uses the darknet and the undernet. In a recent Eurojust operation, a broker says he can pay in bitcoins. Crime knows how to adapt. I can combine old and new. The 'ndrangheta is a daughter of the beautiful reformed society, the camorra of the early nineteenth century, and continues to have the rules that the camorra, however, has lost. He acquired them in the 'penal baths', where there was a common detention. The Camorra campana has influenced 'ndrangheta and Cosa nostra.
If the Casalesi are in crisis it is precisely because they have expanded their sweaters: everyone or almost can enter that organization. Instead of becoming a ragarrista is a very complicated procedure.
They took the point. The Calabrian is the only mafia organization that has managed to keep alive the semantic ritual of the Reformed Society. They modified it, but the core is that. I repeat: they combine tradition and innovation. In Canada, Australia and Germany they still have initiation rites. They are used to create identity.
The mafias are conservative phenomena. Europe, where the main business of the gangs is concentrated, is punctually shaken by Islamic terrorism. Italy is so far the only one, among the most important nations of the Old Continent, not to have suffered attacks. Is there a strong presence of the mafias?
That there are synergies between criminal organizations and terrorists is true. The Camorra, in Campania, in some cases has provided them with false documents. The 'Ndrangheta has for years had relations with Middle Eastern and South American terrorists. They are organizations that finance themselves with the 'toll': the drug passes through their territories, like the migrants that cross Syria. And to guarantee transit, they receive money. I do not know if these relationships have had a role or not to prevent attacks in Italy. Credit must also be given. But the problem is complex. We are in the minefield of hypotheses. The level of our investigators, of service men is very high. Everywhere our capacity in this sector is well known, because for some time we face, unfortunately, such phenomena. If this analytical-investigative capacity could be added a strong and continuous political will to defeat the mafias, things could change. You could do a lot more.
