Rivers of drugs from Gioia Tauro, the relations between the Calabrian 'ndrine and the Brazilians
by Arcangelo Badolati - April 27, 2020
'ndrangheta, cocaine, drugs, joy tauro, Calabria, ChronicleGilberto Aparecido dos Santos
The port of Santos. One of the most important and popular ports of Latin America with cargo ships that shuttle from every corner of the world. Ships leaving for Antwerp, Algeciras, Rotterdam, Marseille, Sidney, Melbourne, Genoa and ... Gioia Tauro.

It is precisely among those docks crowded with men and goods that the most powerful drug traffickers on the land of Samba - those of Primeiro Comando da Capital - and the brokers of the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta organize shipments to Europe and Australia.

It is from the heart of Brazil, in fact, that hundreds of kilos of cocaine produced and processed in Bolivia have been shipped to Italy. "Stuff" of first quality landed in part, in recent years, in the port of Gioia Tauro.

The city of the State of Sao Paulo, made famous on the planet by the coffee trade and by the great Pele who played for Santos, has become for the Calabrian mafia what was once the Bogotà of "Don Pablo" Escobar Gaviria. It is there, in fact, that our local bosses send their emissaries to deal with the CCP's "cronies".

The last shipment destined for Gioia Tauro was blocked and seized last November by the Brazilian federal police before it left the Paulista port. 200 kilos of "white powder" were crammed into a container. And in a residence in San Paolo, in July 2019, the superboss Nicola Assisi and his son, Patrick, originally from Grimaldi, a small town in the Cosentino area, but operating in Piedmont, were arrested.

The two, long fugitives, have been found in possession of money, drugs and punches useful to seal naval containers. On the following September 16, however, he was arrested by agents of the South American federal police Andre de Oliveira Macedo, called "Andre do Rap", discovered in a villa in Angra dos Reis, a well-known seaside resort about 150 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro.

"According to information from international intelligence agencies, the man was in charge of the CCP group in charge of sending drugs from the port of Santos to Calabria , and from there to the rest of Europe," said the Brazilian commissioner after arrest Fabio Pinheiro Lopes. The intercontinental network of drug trafficking, set up by Calabrian and South American fugitives, has lost another important shirt in recent days. Yes, because thanks to the American Goddess, the Brazilian police arrested in Maputo, Mozambique, Gilberto Aparecido dos Santos, better known as "Fuminho", one of the best known narcos in the country and historic leader of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (CCP).

The man was extradited after a few hours to Brazil aboard a plane of the South American Armed Forces with a dozen police officers on board. The Maputo authorities had arrested, after twenty years of hiding, the boss who now seemed impregnable, contesting that he had illegally entered the country.

"Fuminho" like "Andre do Rap" could tell a lot of things about the relationship his organization had with the Calabrians. Will talk? Difficult to answer. It will depend on the offer that will be made in exchange for a possible collaboration. In the marketing of cocaine, in the last thirty years, the 'ndrangheta, as well as with the Brazilians, has flirted with the Colombian cartels of Cali and Medellin, the Autodefendas Unidas de Colombia, the Usuga clan, the Norte del Valle group and of "La Officina"; and with the Mexicans from the Gulf cartel, Sinaloa and Los Zetas.