Since the start of the century, the Mafia has extended its operations across Europe and beyond. In January last year, police arrested 169 people in Germany and Italy over suspected connections to Mafia organisations, more than a dozen of whom were local Calabrian government officials, including three mayors and a deputy mayor, reports Italy’s Rai News.ĭespite a continual stream of arrests and prosecutions, in the 21st century the Mafia “has proven very adaptable to new scenarios, preying on weakness and looking for economic crises as sources of opportunities”, says The Daily Telegraph. In addition, in some hotbeds of Mafia activity, the line between organised crime and the state is far from clear-cut. That myth of the Mafia as a defanged beast could not be further from the truth, especially in the south of Italy, where organised crime “occupies the entire territory”, according to national anti-Mafia prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho.Īcross Calabria, in particular, legitimate businesses, particularly those involved in construction and public works, are frequently controlled by gangs, says the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project investigative platform. However, “while the Italian authorities and media attention were focused on the Sicilians, the Calabrians were able to slowly but steadily expand into Italy’s wealthy north”, Al Jazeera reports. In the 1990s, a spate of assassinations across Sicily targeting anti-Mafia judges, police chiefs and politicians prompted a public backlash against the Mafia and a huge government crackdown that did indeed curb the power of the Sicilian syndicate. The most powerful Mafia syndicate in 21st century Italy is not the Neapolitan Camorra, or the Sicilian “Cosa Nostra” of TV and movie fame, but rather the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta - whose rise is an inadvertent side effect of the state’s war on the Sicilian mafia.
Initially thought to be the work of the Sacra Corona Unita, often dubbed the "fourth mafia", the attacks are now throught to be the work of a wholly independent, and highly aggressive, new criminal organisation.
The care home is located in the city of Foggia, which has seen a string of violent incidents this year, including three car bombs and the shooting of a 50-year-old man. His brother Christian, who is also planning to give evidence in court, had his car destroyed in a similar fashion just several weeks prior. “I’d be a liar if I told you I’m not afraid,” Vigilante said. The owner of the residence, Luca Vigilante, is a key witness in a trial against an underground mob that Italian officials fear has been carrying out criminal activity in the area undetected for several years, says The Guardian.Īlthough no one was injured in the explosion, it is the second to be carried out on the premises this year. An explosive device that blew the doors off an Italian care home in April has sparked fears of the emergence of a "fifth mafia" in the country's Puglia region.
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