Italy

San Luca, a journey in the territory of the 'Ndrangheta with the carabinieri who fight it every day
August 18, 2023
(LaPresse) The city of San Luca, in southern Calabria, has only 4,000 inhabitants. Nonetheless, it is the territory of the 'Ndrangheta. Michele Fiorentino, commander of the San Luca Carabinieri, and his team not only work but live in a difficult context: "The town has about 3,500-4,000 inhabitants. Most of them have been convicted of drug trafficking", said Fiorentino to the British broadcaster Sky, in a video released by the Associated Press. Luigi Di Gioia, commander of the carabinieri of nearby Plati, says that the mafia controls the territory. Even the garbage cans bear the names of the 'Ndrangheta families. Di Gioia told reporters that locals on motorbikes are often employed by the mafia to police the town. In a house in the center of the village, Di Gioia showed Sky an old mafia hideout with a hidden bunker that leads to a tunnel through which two mafia bosses have been trying to escape. The agents of these cities work daily in the fight against the mafia organization, but their work is made more difficult by the roots and the centuries-old hold it has on communities like these. In recent years, European authorities have embarked on a campaign against the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, which has eclipsed the Sicilian mafia as the main sender of tens of billions of euros of cocaine that has moved from South America to Europe in recent decades. In May, police across Europe arrested dozens of people, raided homes and seized assets worth millions of euros in a coordinated crackdown on organized crime. The operation, coordinated by the European Union's judicial cooperation agency Eurojust, aimed at dismantling a network that included members of the 'Ndrangheta, Colombian drug producers and paramilitary groups. The investigation uncovered how these networks used ports in Ecuador, Panama and Brazil to ship Colombian drugs to ports in northern Europe, also smuggling weapons. The drug proceeds were then laundered through restaurants, ice cream parlors and car washes, and the money sent back to Colombian drug makers via a Chinese bank transfer service, according to authorities. RESTRICTION SUMMARY: SKY NEWS EXCLUSIVE - NO ACCESS UK; NO ACCESS UK BROADCASTERS, BBC, ITN, CNNI, AL JAZEERA, BLOOMBERG, GB NEWS, TALK TV