I-CAN: global fight against the 'Ndrangheta
November 17, 2022 3 minutes, 32 seconds read
Last update Thursday 17 November 2022, 12:51
1st Conference in Rome within the Interpol Cooperation Against 'Ndrangheta project

The police forces of 14 countries, under the aegis of Interpol, are meeting in Rome to define together the strategy to combat the 'Ndrangheta. In fact, the 1st Conference of the Focal Points of the I-CAN Project ( Interpol Cooperation Against 'Ndrangheta) is underway at the Police Training School in Rome (from 14 to 17 November 2022).

"The 'Ndrangheta has become a criminal holding company: it no longer attacks the state frontally - explained the prefect Vittorio Rizzi, deputy director general of Public Security and promoter of the project - it is a silent and pervasive mafia that pollutes legal economies, intoxicating them with corruption and money laundering. The times we live in, he added, require the maximum resilience of the police force, which must adapt quickly to rapidly changing criminal scenarios to maximize profits, taking advantage of technological progress, from cryptocurrencies to the metaverse ».

During the event, the Multimedia Information Research and Analysis Center of the Public Security Department, together with Leonardo spa, presented the document analysis project, already in an advanced stage of implementation, which will be capable of correlating police information with those collected on the web, even automatically. In the last stage of its evolution it will be endowed with predictive abilities.

The sharing of information and experiences is - according to Cyril Gout, director of operational support and analysis of Interpol - the key to achieving success in the fight against the mafia phenomenon. The results achieved by the I CAN project invite us, he stressed, to go beyond the normal propensity of police forces to keep investigative data hidden.

As the Public Prosecutor of Reggio Calabria, Giovanni Bombardieri, later explained, "the 'Ndrangheta is not an Italian but a global problem: it has hired the best professionals to infiltrate the legal economies through the proceeds of illegal activities, dialogue and do business with the most dangerous criminal cartels around the world. Until recently, international police cooperation was implemented only in the final phase of investigations, in the making of arrests and in the capture of fugitives. Today coordination takes place much earlier because it is necessary to carry out the investigations simultaneously in the various countries of the world".

The prosecutor of the Republic of Catanzaro, Nicola Gratteri, also spoke on this issue of the internationality of the phenomenon, «The ndrangheta is a global phenomenon that cannot be seen, he said. The problem belongs to everyone and we must all fight it effectively together».

What is the I CAN project
Born in 2020, on the initiative of the Department of Public Security and the General Secretariat of Interpol, the I-CAN Project aims to promote the global fight against organized crime of Calabrian origin, first of all to increase the awareness of the threat, through the exchange of information and experiences, starting from the Italian investigative model which was the first to face the 'Ndrangheta. In little more than two years, the Project has created a network that has allowed the capture of 36 dangerous fugitives all over the world, as well as having favored the recognition of those indicators that are useful for the police force to intercept the infiltration of the mafia organization in economic and financial assets of the various countries.