Operation Ironside: Where Australia’s mafia clans are after being found by AN0M sting

Italian organised crime is now in the sights of the AFP after Operation Ironside exposed its tentacles. This is where they are operating.

Italian organised crime is now in the sights of Australian authorities after the AFP’s Operation Ironside investigation, built around the encrypted phone app, AN0M highlighted the scale of its activities.

Here are the six things you need to know about the Calabrian Mafia in Australia - the nation’s oldest and most ruthless crime syndicate.

1. How long have they been in Australia?

The Italian mafia, mainly from Calabrian, has been operating in Australia for 100 years. Academic and crime expert Anna Sergi has said the Mafia has a fictional birthday of 1922, when the ship King of Italy arrived in Melbourne carrying the “three mythological founders of the Australian Honoured Society”.

Former NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Clive Small, who wrote the book Evil Life: The True Story of the Calabrian mafia in Australia, has said the Calabrian Mafia is the longest-running organised crime organisation Australia has ever had.

Dr Anna Sergi is an expert on the Italian mafia in Australia. Photographed in Glenelg, Adelaide.

2. How many are there?

Police believe there are as many as 5000 members of the Mafia in Australia and they are now investigating 51 Italian organised crime clans, 14 of those have been confirmed as ’Ndrangheta, or Calabrian mafia families. Most are Australian citizens.

Former detective and NSW Assistant Commissioner Clive Small. Picture: Supplied.

3. Where are they?

The Calabrian Mafia have tentacles across most of Australia including operating in Victoria, NSW, the ACT, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland. They are working closely with Middle Eastern crime gangs, Asian triads, South American ¬ cartels and bikie gangs.

Only Tasmania and the Northern Territory are believed not to have any major mafia activity.

1970s anti-drug campaigner Donald Mackay who was murdered.

4. What crimes are they known to have committed?

The Mafia has been blamed for murders, kidnappings, drug importations, money laundering, cannabis cultivation, bribery, extortion, arson and political corruption.

The most notorious killing attributed to the Italian Mafia was the murder of anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay. He was believed to have been gunned down in a hotel car park in rural NSW, sparking a royal commission into drug trafficking. Bullet casings and blood were discovered, but his body was never found.

5. How many early warnings has Australia had about the activities of the Mafia?

Mr Small has said there have been numerous warnings during the past decades about the operations of the Calabrian Mafia in Australia.

A report by The Italian Anti-Mafia Commission in 2008 sounded alarm bells that the Calabrian Mafia had a major stronghold in Australia challenging the views of Australian authorities including the former Australian Crime Commission and the National Crime Authority which had state in a report that they believed the Mafia’s activities in Australia declined in the 1990s.

6. What does the AFP intelligence show about the Mafia’s family ties?

They operate in family clans recruiting members based on blood ties or familial relationships including marriage.

They descended from villages in South Italian region of Calabria. But police point out most Calabrians have nothing to do with the Mafia.

The most senior clan is believed to be in South Australia and has family links charting marriages and associates into other states.

The eldest sons of senior figures are groomed to take over from their fathers who still have strong ties back to Italy. All disputes including marriage breakdowns and child custody disputes are dealt with by the families and kept away from the public eye.

Originally published as Operation Ironside: Where Australia’s mafia clans are after being found by AN0M sting