Massacre in Duisburg, the day the world discovered the 'Ndrangheta
BY TOMMASO DICAPRIO POSTED ON AUGUST 15, 2023
With the Duisburg massacre, which took place on August 15, 2007, the 'Ndrangheta revealed its most brutal and vengeful face to the world for the first time. The attack in which six people lost their lives was yet another settlement of accounts between the two rival 'ndrine of Nirta-Strangio and Pelle-Vottari, at war since the 1990s. Underestimated for years by the state, the Calabrian mafia is today one of the most powerful organizations on the planet, with affiliates spread across five continents and a turnover of 73 billion dollars.
August 15, 2007, Duisburg, Germany. It is in this industrial city of the Ruhr where many Italians live and work, that the whole world first became acquainted with the brutality of the 'Ndrangheta . The outcome of the Duisburg massacre was tremendous: six dead killed, all from Calabria. Behind the mid-August massacre, as it was immediately renamed, a ferocious war was brewing between two 'ndrine rooted in the stone heart of Aspromonte, the Nirta-Strangio and the Pelle-Vottari, protagonists of the long feud of San Luca .
After years of investigations and trials, eight life sentences were issued for the Duisburg massacre. Among those convicted was Giovanni Strangio , considered the creator and one of the executors of the reprisals carried out by the Nirta-Strangio clan against the rival Pelle-Vottari gang.
In addition to Giovanni Strangio, the judges of the Court of Assizes of Locri issued another seven life sentences: the last one in 2020 for Francesco Nirta, accused of multiple murder and possession of a firearms license. Among the other defendants sentenced to life imprisonment are Giovanni Luca Nirta, Giuseppe Nirta, known as 'Peppe u versu', Francesco Pelle known as 'Ciccio Pakistan', Sebastiano Romeo, Francesco Vottari known as 'Ciccio u Frunzue' and Sebastiano Vottari, known as ' the professor'.
The long trail of blood that leads straight to Duisburg starts from afar
The Duisburg massacre represents yet another bloody episode in the long "feud of San Luca", which has raged between the two rival clans since the 1990s. The spark that ignited the fire of revenge between the two families was a disagreement born for futile reasons. During the carnival of 1991 a group of boys linked to the Strangio and Nirta clans threw eggs at the ARCI recreational club, managed by Domenico Pelle, one of the " Gambazza " , also dirtying the car of one of the members of the clan of the Vottaries.
Subsequently, after that first "snub", the ARCI bar was once again targeted by some young members of the Nirta and Strangio clans. This time, some affiliates of the Pelle family beat up the boys, punishing them with what in the Sanluca dialect is call a "cardiata" of beatings.
In the mafia environment, however, a slight cannot go unpunished, as it represents an affront to the honor and respectability of the family. Therefore, to take revenge for the wrong suffered, another group of young people of the Nirta-Strangio, having learned of the incident, decided to settle the accounts by meeting an affiliate of the Vottari clan.
The encounter degenerated into a shootout in which two young men of the group were killed, Francesco Strangio , 20, and Domenico Nirta , 19. But, in the growing spiral of violence and revenge, the Vottari clan surprisingly decided on the lifelong exile from San Luca of the person responsible for the murders. This measure, however, turned out to be useless since the assassin of the Nirta-Strangios was killed a short time later in the neighboring municipality of Bovalino, where he had found temporary refuge.
The Christmas Massacre of 2006
The feud resumed in 1993 when two bosses of the Pelle-Vottari clan were killed, who in turn responded with two more murders. After twelve years without killings, in January 2005, Salvatore Favasuli was killed in Casignana. The alleged perpetrator of that crime was identified in the person of Domenico Giorgi, arrested in Rivalta di Turin on 19 November 2010.
The revenge of Favasuli's other brother, Antonio was not long in coming: on 31 October 2005, Antonio Favasuli killed Antonio Giorgi, triggering a series of cross-revenge which reopened the San Luca feud again.
But the most serious event took place on Christmas evening 2006 when a group of Pelle-Vottari hitmen killed Maria Strangio , wife of Giovanni Nirta and real target of the attack, who managed to save himself, however, remaining paralyzed for life. With the murder of the wife of the boss of the Nirta clan, the mediation attempts undertaken by Francesco Vottari (known as U Frunzu ) to put an end to the war also died.
And thus we arrive at the night between 15 and 16 August 2007. It is 2.30 when a group of six boys, all from Calabria, leave the restaurant "Da Bruno", after having celebrated the eighteenth birthday of one of them, Tommaso Venturi, originally from Calabrian Corigliano.
As soon as the six get into their cars, the killes spring into action. At least 70 shots will be fired in the shootout. At the end of the slaughter, the assassins will shoot each victim in the head, to ensure their death.
The bodies will be found by a passerby a few minutes after the shooting: four in a Voskswagen Golf, two in an Opel van. Only one of the six boys will still be alive when first aid arrives, but he will die during transport to the hospital.
The victims' ties to the 'Ndrangheta
In the days immediately following the massacre, the German police disclosed a possible sketch of one of two men seen fleeing from the square in front of the Italian restaurant: a man of the apparent age of 20-30 years, thin, about one meter eighty tall, with short black hair, two long sideburns and a large mole under the right eye, which later turns out to be Giovanni Strangio.
The mafia imprint on the massacre emerged after the first checks: in fact, in the pockets of one of the boys killed, Tommaso Venturi, the image of a holy card with a burnt head was found , used by the 'Ndrangheta in affiliation rites.
During the searches of the "Da Bruno" restaurant, the German police discovered a room with the statue of the Archangel Michael, protector of the "honored society" (another name by which the Calabrian mafia is identified), in which they were "baptized" the new recruits.
Initially, the German investigators, also supported by the Italian police, hypothesized an investigative lead linked to internal problems of the Pelle-Vottari clan. This hypothesis was immediately denied by the interception of a telephone call made immediately after the massacre by Giovanni Strangio, brother of the just killed Sebastiano, to Achille Marmo.
Immediately after the shooting, the man, who was calling from Duisburg, tried to get in touch in Calabria with the boss Antonio Pelle, on the phone called the "mother" because of his apical role held within the organization, informing him about what happened.
It was that interception that allowed the investigators to link the Duisburg massacre to the San Luca feud. The Italian police believed that the main target of the ambush was Marco Marmo , brother of Achille, suspected of having guarded the weapons used in the 2006 Christmas massacre in which Maria Strangio died. But in addition to the transversal vendettas that had been dragging on since 1991, the investigations also ascertained an economic motive: Marco Marmo and Giovanni Strangio were in fact involved in arms trafficking with the former Yugoslavia.
Trials and sentences
On 12 July 2011, the Court of Assizes of Locri issued the first instance sentence for those guilty of the Duisburg massacre, sentencing Giovanni Strangio, Gianluca Nirta, Francesco Nirta, Giuseppe Nirta, Francesco Pelle, Sebastiano Romeo, Francesco and Sebastian Vottari.
In 2013, a new investigation by the Reggio Calabria district anti-mafia directorate found in a Renault Clio, which according to the investigators was one of the two cars used by the killers, the DNA of Sebastiano Nirta, who was later sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 2016 the Supreme Court sentenced Giovanni Strangio to life imprisonment for Francesco Nirta, Giovanni Nirta and Sebastiano Vottari as creator and perpetrator of the massacre, while Antonio Pelle was acquitted.
From a prank gone wrong to a sixteen-year feud
The Duisburg massacre was a case of transversal revenge which in mafia culture follows the logic of "blood calls for blood". However, with the mid-August morning the leaders of the 'Ndrangheta realized that the San Luca feud had gotten out of hand to the very clans involved and risked blowing up the business bank in Germany.
Furthermore, the investigations following the Duisburg massacre confirmed that the Calabrian mafia had been rooted in the heart of Germany for over ten years : the German investigators became aware of the presence of various "local" 'Ndrangheta (coordination structure of the 'ndrine la whose opening is decided directly by San Luca) scattered throughout the national territory.
The media attention, but above all judicial attention, raised by the massacre therefore forced the mafia bosses to run for cover to prevent the blood shed in a feud between two clans from damaging the "quiet life" of the other families.
On 2 September 2007, 18 days after the massacre, on the occasion of the celebrations of the Madonna di Polsi, in Calabria, the 'Ndrangheta elite held a meeting with representatives of the two families involved in the feud, forcing them to reach peace .
On the occasion of that meeting, the "crimine" of San Luca (the dome of the organization) was also preparing to create a new figure of "mediator" 'Ndrangheta, whose task was to settle the misunderstandings and frictions between the mafia families abroad because another Duisburg should never happen again.
Thomas DiCaprio
https://www.ultimavoce.it/strage-di-duisburg-il-giorno-in-cui-il-mondo-scopri-la-ndrangheta/
