New breed of Ndrangheta mafia bosses become police informants as threats to Australia remain
Mafia members from prominent Calabrian Ndrangheta families in Italy are breaking their code of silence, as experts warn they could try to infiltrate and corrupt Australian politicians.
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Exclusive: A new breed of mafia members in Italy are breaking the code of silence as cracks appear in prominent clans that run Australia’s cocaine trade.
The children of prominent Calabrian Ndrangheta mafia bosses are turning informants as Italian investigators hope for a historic chance to crack down on their 50 billion euro ($80 billion AUD) per year drug and extortion industry.
The threat to Australia has increased despite the law enforcement victories as a new systematic generation of Ndrangheta move away from violence and attempt to corrupt politicians instead to ply their evil trade.
Italy’s top anti-mafia prosecutor Nicola Gratteri warned that Australian politicians and police needed to do more to fight corruption attempts.
And he wants mafia figure Frank Madafferi, who is in jail over his role in what was the world’s biggest ecstasy haul discovered in Melbourne in 2008, to be returned to Italy to face justice there where he has charges dating back to the 1980s.
Madafferi, a crime figure who was granted a visa by former immigration Amanda Vanstone before he was pinged for the drug shipment, is considering a challenge to his conviction because of the involvement in Lawyer X, Nicola Gobbo, in his case.
Mr Gratteri, a veteran anti-mafia fighter who has been subject to decades of death threats, was under heavy police guard when he spoke to News Corp Australia in Milan this week.
“The difference is the old generation was very resilient, they could stand really long trials and 20 or 30 years in jail and just be very firm and not have any problems,” he said in a translated interview.
“We saw the bosses from the past who were very hard, their sons are much more fragile, they are paranoid.
“This crack in the Ndrangheta … we believe that the institutions should try to take advantage of it.”
Attorney General Christian Porter said he did not comment on parole matters before a decision was made and was unable to comment on specific corruption attempts.
“The Australian Government also does not disclose whether it has made or received a request for a person’s extradition, unless and until that person is arrested or brought before a court pursuant to an extradition request,” he said.
“The Government has a robust, multifaceted approach to combating corruption. The Government is also progressing plans to establish a Commonwealth Integrity Commission (CIC) which will enhance national integrity arrangements across the federal public sector.”
“The CIC will … provide expert capability to investigate allegations of serious criminal corruption within the public sector. Through the CIC, the Government is targeting serious criminal corruption that presents a threat to good public administration.”
Emanuele Mancuso, Francesco Farao and Giuseppe Giampa have been the most notable mafia names to crack and become informants.
The mafia talked because they were either scared of a long jail term, in love with a woman they wanted to stay out of jail to be with or were under threat of being killed by the mafia because they had broken the rules.
The Ndrangheta, which grew out of Calabria in Italy’s south, has become one of the strongest organised criminal groups in the world, with estimates of total wealth of more than 150 billion euros ($242 billion AUD).
They have links with South American cocaine cartels where they buy cocaine for $1000 a kilogram that sell on the streets of Sydney for more than $250,000.
Mr Gratteri warned the new business model of the Ndrangheta meant they could try to infiltrate and corrupt Australian politicians.
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“In this western, modern world there is less morals so it’s much easier to corrupt people, since that’s easier you just pay people, there’s less noise than burning a car or killing someone,” he said.
“This is how they are working now and since they have the capability of doing this it’s nearly certain that one day or the other they will try to do this in Australia.”
Madafferi has previously fought deportation after he arrived in Australia on a six-month tourist visa and never left, before eventually being granted a visa on humanitarian grounds in 2005.
Antonio Nicaso, who teachers social history and organised crime at Queen’s University in Canada and has written books with Mr Gratteri, said: “They invest everywhere but Calabria.
They invest in real estate, they invest in any kind of service business, they invest in cryptocurrency, they buy stem cells, in cement in gold in coltan, it’s a mineral that they purchase in congo, they invest in diamonds,” he said.
Enzo Macri, a retired prosecutor who spent 48 years fighting the mafia, said he watched it grow from kidnappings of prominent Italians in the 1970s, to marijuana and cocaine.
The funds from those kidnappings, sometimes up to 2 million euros ($3.2 million AUD), were used to step up the marijuana trade in Griffith, New South Wales.
The Australian Federal Police said in a statement there was constant work on organised crime threats, with officers posted around the globe.
“Australia remains an attractive destination for transnational organised crime groups to import border controlled drugs,” the statement said.