Mafia-buster fury over failure to arrest 'mobsters' Nicola Ciconte, Vincenzo Medici and Michael Calleja

A MOBSTER'S death has unmasked the Australian arm of a very powerful empire.

MAFIA busters in Italy are angry their government has failed to jail three Australian-based Calabrian mafia members over drug busts worth $2 billion.

The Mr Big of the trio, Victorian-born Nicola Ciconte, died this week on the run in Cambodia without having to serve a day of the lengthy sentence the Italian courts gave him.

All three were found guilty in Italy in their absence and given jail terms of between 15 and 25 years.

Since those convictions in May last year, Australian Federal Police agents have been expecting to be asked to arrest Ciconte, Vincenzo Medici and Michael Calleja so they can be extradited to Italy to serve their sentences.

But an Italian Carabinieri officer familiar with the case yesterday claimed he and other anti-mafia investigators in Italy were disappointed no move has been made to lodge an extradition request with the Australian Government.

PART TWO: Secret dosssiers in mafia war

PART THREE: Threat from secret societies

He said Ciconte, Medici and Calleja were convicted in Italy of successfully exporting 220kg of cocaine from Italy to Australia between late 1999 and early 2000 and of later being involved in a foiled plot to ship almost two tonnes of cocaine from Italy to Melbourne.

The officer provided the Herald Sun with a Carabinieri document which named Ciconte, 58, as the head of the Melbourne cell of the Calabrian mafia's global cocaine smuggling gang.

It claimed Ciconte was not only the boss of the Melbourne arm of the Calabrian mafia drug ring, but was also the deputy head of the entire Italian-based international syndicate.

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The Carabinieri document said Ciconte ``was in charge of the importation and the sale of drugs on the Australian market and ensured that the revenue of those sales would be transferred to the Italian branch''.

It named two companies, one in Adelaide and one in Sydney, as being used by Australian Calabrian mafia members to import cocaine hidden inside building materials and other legitimate goods.

About 150 members of the Calabrian mafia syndicate Ciconte, Medici and Calleja were members of were arrested in 2004 during raids which resulted in police seizing cocaine with a street value of $2 billion.

More than 400kg of the syndicate's cocaine reached Australia and a further 300kg was on its way to Melbourne when police made the arrests, most of which were in Italy.

Ciconte had been ordered to serve a 25-year jail term in Italy, but his death this week from pneumonia in a Cambodian hospital obviously puts him beyond the reach of Italian authorities.

But there is nothing stopping the Italian government asking the AFP to arrest Medici and Calleja, who have each been sentenced to 15 years in an Italian jail for their roles in the cocaine smuggling gang.

AFP deputy commissioner of operations, Mike Phelan, yesterday confirmed the AFP knew where to find Medici, 48, and Calleja, 54, in Australia if they needed to arrest them.

``In terms of whether or not those people will be going back to Italy to face their sentences will be a matter for the Italian Government,'' Mr Phelan told the Herald Sun.

``The AFP can neither confirm or deny whether or not an application for extradition has been made at this stage.''

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Mr Phelan said the AFP had prepared a brief of evidence to charge Ciconte, Medici and Calleja with drug offences in Australia, but the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions had recommended against doing so.

``There was insufficient evidence in the eyes of the DPP to secure a prosecution in Australia so therefore charges were not pursued here,'' he said.

Mr Phelan said the rules of evidence were different in Australia to Italy, which meant some of the evidence used to convict Ciconte, Medici and Calleja in Italy, including evidence from police informers, was unable to be used in Australia.

``They have been convicted in absentia in Italy so we are waiting on advice from the Italian authorities as to which way they want to proceed at this stage,'' he said.

``We are aware of where Medici and Calleja are and could find them if we needed to.''

Ciconte was jailed in Victoria in 2005 over a $17 million dollar fraud, which was unrelated to his massive cocaine smuggling.

The twice-married father-of-two had run businesses in Melbourne, Sydney and country Victoria and was a finance expert experienced in exploiting world banking systems to launder money. He has also worked as a rock band promoter.

Although jailed for three years on the fraud charges in March 2005, the judge agreed to release Ciconte after 12 months if he promised to be of good behaviour for four years.

He moved to the Gold Coast after getting out of jail and was in hiding in Cambodia at the time of his death this week.

Ciconte's parents migrated from Calabria shortly before he was born in country Victoria in 1955.

Vincenzo Medici, of Mildura, was jailed in Australia in 2011 for a maximum of four and a half years, and ordered to serve a minimum of three, after being found guilty in the Melbourne County Court of drug trafficking.

He was also convicted in the 1980s of culpable driving causing the deaths of two people.

In a sad twist, his son Marco Medici Jnr, aged 15 at the time, was seriously injured in a 2006 Mildura hit and run incident that killed six of his friends.

Vincenzo Medici's father, Marco Medici Sr, was murdered on the Medici family property in Mildura in 1983.

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His brother Matteo was charged with their father's murder but was acquitted.

Matteo Medici has convictions for drug and firearms offences and extortion.

Australia rates just a passing mention in Scottish academic John Dickie's new and excellently researched book on the history of the three Italian mafia organisations.

But his book, Mafia Republic, correctly points out the Calabria-based `Ndrangheta - or Calabrian mafia - has had a presence in Australia since at least the 1930s.

He also points out the Calabrian mafia, worldwide, is just as powerful as the better known Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Camorra from Naples.

The Cosa Nostra and Camorra haven't come to the attention of Australian law enforcement agencies and are thought to have little or no influence in the Australian crime world.

But the Calabrian mafia continues to be a major force in Australia.

The previous two world's two biggest ecstasy busts have been in Melbourne, with the 2005 world record bust of five million ecstasy tablets in 2005 being eclipsed in 2007 with the seizure by Australian Federal Police of 14.5 million ecstasy pills.

Both world record shipments to Melbourne were organised by the Calabrian mafia.

The Calabrian mafia is also one of the world's biggest distributors of cocaine - and Australia is high on its distribution list.

The ever-adaptable Calabrian mafia recognised there was increasing demand for cocaine during the late 1990s and quickly set about ensuring its well established international connections could assist in satisfying that demand.

Soon after that, AFP agents and police in Italy obtained intelligence the Calabrian mafia was part of a global cocaine smuggling gang.

Pooling that intelligence and working together resulted in more than 150 arrests in 2004 - and the seizure of cocaine with a street value of $2 billion.

More than 400kg of that cocaine reached Australia. A further 300kg was on its way to Melbourne when police made the mass arrests.

The joint AFP and Italian Carabinieri operation revealed the Calabrian mafia had teamed up with Colombian cocaine cartels and a Colombian paramilitary group.

A Carabinieri intelligence document seen by the Herald Sun showed the Calabrian gang was trafficking vast amounts of cocaine between South America (Colombia and Venezuela), Europe (Italy, France, Spain, Holland and Germany), Africa (Togo) and Australia (Adelaide and Melbourne). The document identified 11 known cocaine shipments organised by the Calabrian mafia gang to ports around the world.

It shifted 13.3 tonnes of cocaine with a street value of $4.5 billion to several countries between 1999 and 2004, including Australia.

When Adelaide businessman Pietroantonio Cerullo was busted in August 2000, it started a four-year international police investigation, codenamed Operation Decollo, which ended up severely disrupting Calabrian mafia activity around the world.

Cerullo, 60, was given a 20-year sentence in 2004 for hiding 317kg of cocaine in his shed. The cocaine had been divided into 476 discs that resembled rounds of cheese and was hidden inside six barrels. Police also found $300,000 in cash stuffed inside an onion bag in Cerullo's pantry.

Detectives discovered Cerullo was importing sandstone from Columbia, under the guise of making gravestones. He imported 12 huge sandstone blocks in three separate shipments in 2000. Evidence suggested three of the 12 sandstone blocks were hollowed out and used to hide the cocaine they later seized at Cerullo's home.

The old ``hide it in commercial items'' trick was often used by the Calabrian mafia in its global drug trade. Much of the 5.5 tonnes of cocaine seized in Italy and elsewhere was hidden in much the same way as Cerullo's cocaine.

At the time he was arrested, Cerullo had a warrant for his arrest in Victoria over a 1994 marijuana crop.

Customs investigator David Chantrell told an Adelaide court he suspected Cerullo had also imported cocaine in 1999 and attempted to import the drug in 1998.

The three Australian-based Calabrian mafia members convicted in their absence in Italy in May last year - Nicola Ciconte, Vincenzo Medici and Michael Calleja - were part of the same global drug syndicate Cerullo was working for.

Mr Phelan told the Herald Sun the Italian Carabinieri started investigating that Calabrian mafia cocaine network in 2000.

``Investigations and information-sharing with the Italian authorities indicated that the Italian syndicate had agreed to supply the Australian syndicate with between 350kg and 500kg of cocaine, which would be transshipped through Italy,'' he said.

``In late 2003, the participating law enforcement agencies agreed to a strategy whereby all countries would move against offenders in their jurisdictions in the coming months.

``It was acknowledged that this would probably be before the multi-tonne shipment was delivered to Italy.''

The four-year investigation came to a head on January 28, 2004, with raids on properties around the world that resulted in more than 150 arrests, most of them in Italy.

AFP agents raided 18 properties, eight in Melbourne, one in Mildura and six in Adelaide.

Documents and computer equipment were seized, but no arrests were made in Australia.

The Carabinieri document seen by the Herald Sun revealed the Calabrian mafia was getting its cocaine from Colombian cocaine cartels which were protected by paramilitary groups.

``Evidence was obtained of the Colombians' tendency to establish labs in order to produce cocaine in zones subject to the control of paramilitary organisations (guerilla army) that guaranteed drug refinery and protection in exchange for profit share,'' it said.

``The investigation shows in general terms the extraordinary importance of the `Ndrangheta in the area of the national and international drug trade when compared with other mafia organisations.''

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