THE INVESTIGATION
This is how the 'Ndrangheta took over Germany
Since the Duisburg massacre, Calabrian organized crime has been "underestimated". Today, the Germans say mea culpa Published on: 11/16/2023 – 6:51 am
of Paris Leporace
LAMEZIA TERME October 2023. A postal delivery van travels on a road around Duisburg, up north in Germany . The vehicle hits an old lady's car. The police are in the area and intervened in the accident. Before starting the bureaucratic investigations, the documents are obtained.
The courier is an Italian. A Calabrian, Antonio Strangio , 44 ??years old, from San Luca. Even a traffic policeman would have suspicions in those parts. Time to enter the data and the response arrives. Antonio Strangio is a fugitive wanted for a conviction for cocaine trafficking . He didn't even use false names or documents. But San Lucoto's criminal record is quite as copious as a 'Ndrangheta copycat . They call him " u meccanicu ", Antonio, for his passion for cars, photographed by Italian investigators on the street of Polsi on the days of the celebration, but above all indicated as the failed victim of the Duisburg massacre . The mechanic, now a courier, worked as a pizza chef in the European place that revealed the 'Ndrangheta to Europe, "Da Bruno". They included that massacre of six people killed in the series "Gomorrah" even if the screenwriters preferred to move the location of the massacre to Cologne. Instead, everything happened in Duisburg on August 15th 2007 , over fifteen years ago.
duisburg
German investigators at the site of the Duisburg massacre
Antonio Strangio, for reasons of duty or for astral luck or for lack of role in the affiliation that takes place in that pizzeria, left early, that bloody mid-August that leaves six Calabrians dead in the heart of steelmaking Germany. In the search after the massacre, 280 357 magnum cartridges were found in Antonio's locker. And since that mid-August holiday "u meccanicu" continues to go back and forth between San Luca and Germany.
The massacre that revealed to the Germans the penetration of the 'Ndrangheta into Germany was a watershed moment. He will write the report of the Anti -Mafia Parliamentary Commission of the and archaic." But the steel and industrial world of the Ruhr does not have the legal tools to understand the post-modern syncretism of a mafia that has become something else. Only 8 months after the massacre, the German judiciary denied the seizure of the "Da Bruno" pizzeria, two other restaurants and two apartments in Kaarst, a city very close to Duisburg. The properties are registered in the name of people not involved in the investigation, the German guarantee system does not provide for emergency exceptions.
Traces of the presence of the 'ndrangheta in those parts had been reported well before the massacre. In an old ordinance it is written that the proceeds of the San Luca drug trafficking had been invested "in properties and public businesses in Duisburg". Gratteri, who coordinated the investigation into the massacre, had wiretaps sent to the German investigators that raised a serious alarm, but his Teutonic colleagues did not have the tools to intervene . A ROS report already in 1999 had reported the "Da Bruno" restaurant and in that same year, two protagonists of the feud, Santo Vottari and Francesco Pelle , were stopped in France while traveling in a BMW. Before the arrival of the Euro, three hundred million lire and one million French francs were found in the back of a seat. They were headed for Duisburg . A place like any other for French policemen.
The 'Ndrangheta in Germany
Petra Reski has had many problems reporting on the 'Ndrangheta in Germany, facing defamation trials, and has sometimes been forced to have suspicious names removed from her publications. In an interview, Petra, you said: " There are thousands of cases of, let's call them pizza chefs, who come to work in Germany with a monthly income of 800 euros and perhaps buy themselves a hotel, or entire streets. " After the Duisburg massacre, judicial controversies and police reports targeted the prestigious Landhaus Milser Hotel which had hosted the Italian national football team which won the World Cup in 2006. The owner is called Antonio Pelle and is from San Luca, with no criminal record, he wrote also a book on his story of suspicions after the massacre to tell the story of the condition of those who carry with them a surname and a toponym that leaves no German or Italian investigator neutral. The presentation of the book in San Luca was also attended by Don Pino Strangio , rector of the Polsi Sanctuary for decades, and Rosy Canale who later ended up under the hammer of sensational judicial investigations after having represented the good side of the "mother" town of the 'Ndrangheta. Germany is a nation that does not have the crime of mafia association, affiliates only find problems with international arrest warrants .
The Duisburg massacre
Not just Duisburg
In 2019, the German government identified 314 'Ndrangheta men while today an estimated thousand are distributed in 20 premises across the entire federal territory . A journalistic investigation by Faz writes that since 2007 a control room composed of 9 bosses of the major gangs has been operating, which would be called " German Crime ". The penetration model is very similar to that recorded for the colonization of Northern Italy. Colonies of emigrants in the 1950s brought the first avant-gardes, today young affiliates continue to arrive. The emerging scholar Anna Sergi explains : " The young 'ndrangheta, even those who arrive in Germany, undergo a sort of indoctrination comparable to terrorist brainwashing ."
It's all about easy money. « I'll give you 5,000-10,000 euros and tell you go and become a partner of your cousin who has a pizzeria in Germany. You go because you can do something in Germany. It's the idea that you can make easy money and you deserve to have a good life ." In this way Calabrian emigration fuels the turnover of picciotti and sgarristi. However, something is starting to change, in fact it is recorded that for the first time a conviction by a German court has cited the 'Ndrangheta , in relation to the crimes committed by Salvatore Giorgi , a waiter, in a restaurant on Lake Constance, which is was sentenced to three years and six months for drug trafficking and money laundering. An ice cream parlor was recently discovered in Siegen which would have had a double function: laundering money from drug trafficking and acting as a support point for young 'Ndrangheta supporters who came to Germany to learn the language and integrate into the criminal environment . This time too the other terminal was in San Luca. But Calabrian mafia penetration also comes from the Crotone area, from Sibaritide, from other places in Reggino. According to Professor Antonio Nicaso , Gratteri's close writing collaborator, «Germany is the country where there is the greatest presence of the 'Ndrangheta in the world. They managed to clone the Calabrian mafia geography, surpassing the USA, Canada and Australia in terms of infiltration. The most important families of the 'Ndrangheta are all present."
In the 1990s, in an investigation by Il Messaggero, Gianfranco Manfredi told of a Calabrian in Stuttgart, Mario Lavorato , a straw man for the Farao-Marincola and financier of a German CDU politician. The Calabrian will be acquitted . His name crops up again in 2017 when he accompanies the mayor of Offenbach and his collaborators on a tour between Mandatoriccio and Cirò for investments in suspicious properties. The repentant Gaetano Aloe defines him as "the gang leader" and said in a statement: «In Germany he owns several restaurants and in Calabria a village, he developed these activities with the Faraos who benefit from them as if they were the owners. I know this personally because once I, Cenzo Farao, son of Giuseppe, my Spanish brother-in-law, went to Stuttgart."
Meanwhile, something is changing in Germany. This is certified by Enzo Ciconte , one of the first scholars of the phenomenon who after the Eureka operation last May wrote in Domani: " Now even the Germans are making mea culpa about the German 'Ndrangheta ". The game is still at the beginning. (redazione@corrierecal.it)
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(The statements of the scholar Anna Sergi reported in the article are taken from an interview conducted by the journalist Cristina Giordano for the Comso Italiano podcast of the German public broadcaster WDR / Cosmo, in the episode broadcast on 11 August 2023 and entitled « The 'ndrangheta in Germany 2 – The gangs and German justice". This is the link:
https://www1.wdr.de/radio/cosmo/programm/sendungen/radio-colonia/il-tema/ndrangheta-germania-cosche -giustizia-gerdesca-100.html ) .
https://www.corrieredellacalabria.it/2023/11/16/ecco-come-la-ndrangheta-si-e-presa-la-germania/
