The cocaine trade is worth more than the Heroin trade was back then. And the Ndrangheta is the one of the biggest player in that game, if not the biggest. Look at the bust back then with the heroin trade with sicilians it was 50 kg 100kg. Today with Ndrangheta you see 1 ton 5 tons 8 tons of cocaine shipments.
The Calabrians has penetrated the northern Italy in a way which the Sicilians did not.
sicilian mafia earned more because produced in italy withouth intermediators etc. (some sicilian labs produced 5/6 tons for year and sicily was full of labs)
ndrangheta import it from colombia and also behind big shipments of tons there are usually several different criminal groups, not only one
sicilians were the strongest in northern italy too at that time, anyway they were huge in the united states and connections all over western europe
north italy is nothing compared to the states
