51 clans, 5000 members: Italian families rule crime gang networks
As many as 5000 mafia members are in Australia, with Italian organised crime responsible for smuggling tonnes of illicit drugs and washing billions in dirty money.
As many as 5000 members of the mafia have been identified in Australia, with Italian organised crime responsible for smuggling tonnes of illicit drugs onto our shores and washing billions in dirty money through the economy.
The Australian Federal Police is investigating 51 Italian organised crime clans, 14 confirmed as ’Ndrangheta, or Calabrian mafia families, some taking their orders from the godfathers back in Italy.
They are operating across Victoria, NSW, the ACT, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland, and working closely with Middle Eastern crime gangs, Asian triads, South American cartels and local outlaw motorcycle gangs.
In a major breakthrough in combating organised crime in Australia, the AFP has compiled a family tree of the mafia, parts of which it has shared with The Australian, charting marriages and associates of the Italian organised crime clans by using data obtained from the elaborate undercover Operation Ironside investigation, built largely around the encrypted app AN0M.
AN0M was a Trojan horse app that the underworld was tricked into using, not knowing the AFP and FBI were monitoring and copying the 25 million messages sent on the platform.
An international effort is under way involving law-enforcement partners including the Australian Federal Police, Colombian, US and Italian authorities sharing information to disrupt Italian organised crimes’ global networks.
The ’Ndrangheta, mafia groups from Calabria in southern Italy, would be a particular focus after police were able to identify the extent of their involvement in smuggling drugs into and around Australia. The group has been in Australia for generations, but local bosses are in close contact with bosses back in Italy.
More than 300 AN0M handsets were discovered in Italy during the Operation Ironside raids last year, a number of them provided by Australians.
“We have identified 14 ’Ndrangheta clans across Australia, involving thousands of members,’’ said AFP Assistant Commissioner crime command Nigel Ryan.
“Our picture of the clans is continuing to grow, but intelligence suggests their overall membership could potentially be similar to that of patched members in Australian outlaw motorcycle gangs. That shows how subterranean and significant the ’Ndrangheta are in Australia.”
There are between 4500 and 5000 outlaw motorcycle gang members in Australia.
Mr Ryan said the intelligence obtained through AN0M provided an invaluable insight into the scale of illicit drug imports facilitated by the ’Ndrangheta, the profits they were making and how often they worked with outlaw motorcycle groups.
June 8 marks the first anniversary of the overt action taken under Operation Ironside, the biggest and most significant organised crime operation in the AFP’s history, where more than 4000 police conducted raids across Australia and revealed the truth behind the app the criminals thought was unbreakable.
The enormous trove of data which police are decrypting and analysing has given law enforcement unprecedented information about the mafia clans, how they operate, who they work with, where their drugs come from, and how they launder their money.
More than 1000 people worldwide have been arrested, including 383 in Australia. The local arrests include alleged mafia bosses, senior outlaw motorcycle gang members, airport workers and other allegedly corrupt trusted insiders. Of the people who have been charged with 2340 offences in Australia, 42 have since pleaded guilty. More than 6.3 tonnes of illicit drugs, 147 weapons and firearms and $55 million have been seized.
In recent weeks, four people alleged to have connections to Mafia families were arrested, including three alleged to be linked to the ’Ndrangheta. They were accused by police of involvement in a plot to import 1.2 tonnes of cocaine from Ecuador.
The men, a 30-year-old from South Australia, a 46-year-old from South Australia and a 36-year-old man from Griffith in NSW, will face court this month.
In an unrelated matter, a woman charged over a drug-smuggling plot in Melbourne is part of a family thought to be linked to the ’Ndrangheta. Her father and uncle were murdered in separate shootings a decade ago.
“In collaboration with Italian authorities, the AFP has been mapping and assessing the familial relationships, through blood or marriage of the ’Ndrangheta in Australia,’’ Mr Ryan said.
“Our intelligence, new powers under the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021, our world-leading capabilities and our international networks are beginning to remove the cloak of secrecy that has allowed members of the ’Ndrangheta to operate in Australia with impunity for too many years.
“The ’Ndrangheta are not just an Australian problem – they are a global problem and they are responsible for trafficking 70 per cent of the world’s cocaine. In Australia, they are also responsible for cannabis and methamphetamine trafficking.
“During Operation Ironside, law enforcement charged a number of ’Ndrangheta members, some who were taking their orders from bosses in Calabria.’’
Mr Ryan said the ’Ndrangheta clans were now so powerful they got bikies to do their dirty work, including selling the drugs smuggled into Australia, and acting as enforcers.
“The ’Ndrangheta are flooding Australia with illicit drugs and are pulling the strings of Australian outlaw motorcycle gangs, who are behind some of the most significant violence in our communities,’’ he said. “They have become so powerful in Australia that they almost own some outlaw motorcycle gangs, who will move drugs around for their ’Ndrangheta financiers, or carry out acts of violence on behalf of the ’Ndrangheta.”
Mr Ryan said the action was targeted at criminals, not countries nor ethnic groups.
“If you are a member of a cartel operating out of Mexico, a member of a triad operating out of Asia or a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang in Australia, and you are impacting on Australians because of your illegal activity, then you will be targeted by the AFP,” he said.
AFP Commander Raegan Stewart said the ’Ndrangheta was the most prevalent of the Italian organised crime group operating in Australia. “This mafia group emanate from the Calabria region in the south of Italy and date back to the 18th century,’’ she said.
“The ’Ndrangheta is considered to be one of the most powerful organised crime groups in the world and has far-reaching branches in Europe, South America, Canada, the USA and Australia.’
“Given the enormous physical scale of Australia in comparison to Italy and the inability to carry out all of their activity ‘in house’ the ’Ndrangheta in Australia are known to work with other organised crime groups including Middle Eastern, Asian, Balkans and OMCGs in order to conduct their criminal enterprises.
“Information suggests Australia-based Italian organised crime maintain connections to Italy and at times are involved in joint criminal ventures with (similar groups) based offshore.’’
In a statement, the AFP noted the Australian ’Ndrangheta were believed to have been involved in money laundering since the 1970s through legitimate business, making it difficult for law enforcement agencies to track the original source of money.
’Ndrangheta continue to launder proceeds of crime and facilitate illegal drug activity through the use of bitcoin dealers, corrupt lawyers and accountants.
Multiple methods have been used by Australian ’Ndrangheta members to mitigate the risk of a detection of illicit drug imports, including organising “dry runs’’ of shipments to see if the legitimate imports in which the drugs are hidden attract the attention of authorities.
As well, ’Ndrangheta members have access to at least three experienced dive teams who can be deployed in South Australia, Victoria and possibly NSW or Queensland that could remove welded compartments used to smuggle drugs attached to the hulls of large sea vessels.
Italian National Police colonel Antonio Montanaro said the ’Ndrangheta clans in Italy were still calling the shots in Australia.
“You can see them as being hierarchically organised,” Colonel Montanaro told The Australian.
“Their antennas abroad have their own autonomy until a certain point. But important decisions still are made in Italy, or by the original families in the motherland.”
The ’Ndrangheta has been one of the most difficult criminal organisations to penetrate due to it being based around families. It has only been in recent years that investigators have been able to gain a better picture of how the organisation works, but even now there were still knowledge gaps.
“The ’Ndrangheta has only a very, very limited number of justice co-operators, people who were working with them and now want to co-operate with the government,” Colonel Montanaro said. “It’s the criminal organisation that has the least number of them. So, it was very difficult for us to understand from the inside how they work.”
Family clans are known as ’ndrine. If there is more than one operating in the same town, they form what is known as a locale.
“When you find in a country different from Italy that there is a locale, it means that it’s already too late,” Colonel Montanaro said.
“It means that you already have an organised group of families in order to control the territory.”
