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THEY are shadowy mobsters with an iron grip on the world’s drug trade and now Italy’s most secretive mafia looks set for a civil war.
The ‘Ndrangheta, infamous for their ruthless executions, kidnappings and extortion, are said to be worth tens of billions of dollars and have infiltrated almost every part of Italian society through cocaine smuggling.
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The gangsters, made up of 40 different family clans in the southern region of Calabria, are reeling from the death of dad-of-four Antonio Strangio.
The 42-year-old farmer had been missing for over a week and just days ago, remains found in a burnt-out SUV, in San Luca, were confirmed to be his.
Antonio, who was identified from charred bone, a necklace and some teeth, was the son of Guiseppe Strangio - the crime boss in charge of a 'Ndrangheta faction known as the 'Barbarians'.
The 70-year-old mafia don was involved in Italy’s most famous kidnapping case in 1988, when 19-year-old Cesare Casella was held in a secret bunker for two years by the mob.
Cesare’s wealthy family paid one billion pounds for his release.
Guiseppe was also jailed for 14 years for murder in 1974 and is said to have been at the centre of other major ransom schemes, including that of industrialist Carlo De Feo.
Carlo, a 40-year-old businessman from Naples, was held for over a year before being freed when his family agreed to pay £1.5million
Hampshire author Alex Perry, an authority on the ‘Ndrangheta, told The Sun how revenge for Strangio’s killing will be violent and bloody and could spark an inner war within the mafia.
He said: “If it turns out to be murder nobody will go to the authorities but justice will be done inside the 'Ndrangheta and the violence is guaranteed to be excruciating.
“The killers will make it as painful as possible.
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“It may not be instant revenge as they are willing to wait until the moment they can cause maximum outrage, so just after a wife has given birth or on someone’s birthday.
“This could reignite a feud that will last for decades but has already gone back 20 years. They kill each other much more often than anybody else.
“They are horrendously violent. There’s always a romance around mafia stories but the ‘Ndrangheta kill that stone dead.”
Antonio Nicaso, a professor of organised crime now living in Toronto, said: "If this was an attack on the Strangios, repercussions would be inevitable. Their 'inquiries' are not as slow as those of the police.
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"We will know soon enough. The 'Ndrangheta has always known how to communicate effectively without using many words."
The family-led mob are known for their savage medieval style killings, making one woman who ‘betrayed’ them drink a vat of acid and blowing up a man in a car bomb over a land dispute with his father.
Their crimes have included murder, violent ambushes, torched cars and even animal slaughter, with puppies, dolphins and goats beheaded or slain in nightmarish warnings.
In February 2008, the Strangio family were hit by a massive asset seizure along with other Calabria clans who were involved in a feud that led to a mass shooting in Germany one year earlier.
Six members of the Pelle-Romeo crime family died when a gunman from the Strangio clan opened fire outside a restaurant, including an 18-year-old who was celebrating his birthday,
Coined the Duisburg massacre, the shooting was revenge for the murder of a mobster’s wife a year earlier in a feud that initially erupted over the throwing of a firework during a festival in both clans' hometown of San Luca.
More than 70 bullets were found in the bodies of the six victims.
Last year 200 of the clan were jailed as courageous whistleblowers went on record to expose the horrors caused by the firm.
A court in Rome, guarded by armed police, heard how dead animals would be dumped on the doorsteps of rivals and local residents, corrupt cops were paid off and their power over local authorities saw them transport drugs in much-needed ambulances and divert water supplies to grow marijuana.
Grieving mum Sara Scarpulla told the trial how her son Matteo Vinci, a biologist from Limbadi, was killed in a car bomb in April 2018.
She said she remembers coming home and seeing the family pets decapitated and their heads tossed onto the roof of her property.
Despite the arrests, the ‘Ndrangheta continue their reign of terror - yet live bizarre, secretive lives.
'Group of goat-herders'
The family-led mafia was born out of the fall of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, immortalised in the movie The Godfather.
As Italian cops went to war with the Cosa Nostra in the 1980s, the Calabria families took over the cocaine trade - just as it exploded across Europe.
The acquisition shocked the authorities who had dismissed the ‘Ndrangheta clans as “a group of goat herders who did their trousers up with twine”, says Perry.
“They took power and put people all over Latin America and West Africa and created a whole new drug trafficking route from South America to Europe. Coke consumption went through the roof, from a rare drug to one you could find in any nightclub,” says the author.
They have since permeated every aspect of life in the area, in the ‘boot’ of Italy, taking over local contracts for construction and waste management.
Despite running a sophisticated criminal empire worth an estimated £5billion a year - the equivalent to the GDP of Croatia - the older mafia remain living in run-down houses on the mountainside with no outward sign of wealth.
Younger generations either farm the land or go abroad to get business degrees and jobs in the rich north of the country.
Perry said: “They have become a global enterprise yet have stayed local in these little villages in Calabria, up in the mountains or they live in fairly grim seaside towns.
“They speak a different dialect, are immensely secret and family is at the root of everything, but in an almost cult way.
“They have taken the bonds of loyalty and love and turned it into a criminal empire. They rarely rat on each other because it means they are betraying the people they love.
“These families are worth millions yet you go to San Luca, where most live and the places are all grim and look poor.
“They are all over state contracts for the roads, water and hospitals and take the money but don’t carry out any public services. They run their homes on generators and buy bottles of water and, if they need medical attention, fly to another country.
“There’s a deliberate misery to the whole thing and the motivation is a mystery to anyone who studies them.
“Those born into the families know of nothing else but criminality and are brainwashed. The ambition is to be the biggest, richest guy in the village but they don’t spend their money.
“It’s like local fame gone psycho.”
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Perry told how Italian cops who wire-tapped one mafia family heard a son tell his father “all the money I’ve buried has gone rotten.”
He said: “The dad simply said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty’. It’s all so bizarre.
“They are as far from the flashy Naples mob as you can get.
“Some of the younger generation go abroad to universities in America and learn business studies then come back to Italy and join companies where they can be useful to their families.
“Italian police were amazed to discover that they have managed to infiltrate major companies in Milan.”
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A crack police operation to tackle the gang includes helicopters and armed officers called the Squadron Hunters of Aspromonte.
Every year, the gangster families take part in a pilgrimage to a local church in San Luca where they mingle with locals.
The event is often wire-tapped and filmed by cops as members huddle together in corners, whispering about their achievements.
The 2023 court case heard how the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Polsi church became a chance to 'baptise' new members, discuss strategy and pray.
In the early 2000's the local priest Don Pino Strangio - dubbed the 'mafia priest' by Italian media - had his car firebombed to test his allegiance to the mafia.
Revenge killings
There are those who have stood up to the gang - but for many, it has cost them their lives.
The mother of kidnap victim Cesare Casella bravely stood in the square of San Luca, wearing a sign pleading for the return of her teenage son.
Three women became some of the first to testify against the gangsters in 2002 but two paid with their lives.
Mum-of-three Maria Concetta Cacciola, 31, was forced to drink a highly corrosive acid and suffered an agonising death when her family caught up with her.
Lea Garofalo, 34, lived in witness protection for four years but mob bosses tracked her down and she was lured to Milan by estranged partner Cosco under the pretence of a reunion.
She was murdered and her body taken to a remote part of Lombardy where it was burned over three years, leaving just fragments behind.
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The women’s story was recounted in a Disney+ crime drama The Good Mothers, based on a book by Perry.
He said: “The ‘Ndrangheta are horrendously violent. They kind of reject education so the men are inarticulate and thuggish.
“They are horribly misogynistic and violence against women is routine, girls are married off at 13 or 14, arranged by clan matches, and violence and revenge is horrific.”
Who are the Ndrangheta?
The roots of the Ndrangheta can be traced back centuries.
They started as farmers working on the land to evolve into a criminal organisation.
Each family has a crime boss and underneath them are the 'contabile' responsible for organising finances, the 'sottocapo', who serve as right hand men and the 'picciotti', the foot soldiers.
Drugs are the main source of their fortune but the Ndrangheta is also involved in money laundering, extortion, arms trafficking, kidnapping and illegal gambling.
In Calabria they have local officials in their pocket and have 'won' contracts for services like water and electricity,
They have started to extend their reach into northern Italy. It is now believed that as many as 500 members operate in Lombardy, with Milan at its heart.
They maintain power through a strict code of silence, known as omerta.
Italy saw its biggest breakthrough in the fight against organised crime in 2023 in a huge trial which saw 200 mobsters jailed. The three year trial was one of the longest in the country's history.
As Italy holds its breath to see if their biggest mafia will soon be at war, it could be tragic victim Lea Garofalo who could finally bring them down from beyond the grave.
For it’s her testimony that she gave to police before she was murdered that is still being used in cases today and continues to see many finally brought to justice.
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