The long march of the ’Ndrangheta in Europe

Abstract

8 See Dia, Italian Anti-mafia Investigative Direction: "The 'Ndrangheta is a leader in international drug trafficking" (Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, Relazione del ministro dell'Interno al Parlamento, gennaio-giugno 2020, p. 12); Luciana Lamorgese, Italian Home Minister, "The investigative and judicial findings confirm the supremacy of the 'Ndrangheta in world drug markets" (Luciana Lamorgese, report to the Italian Anti-mafia Parliamentary Commission, 30 October 2019, https://webtv.camera.it/evento/15259); see also, F. Spiezia, former vice-president of Eurojust, I Attacco all'Europa i , Piemme, Milano, 2020, p. 101. From an institutional and semantic point of view, it is therefore the youngest among the three main Italian mafia organizations (Cosa Nostra in Sicily, Camorra in Campania, and 'Ndrangheta in Calabria) and the one that, until the 1980s, remained in a subordinate position on the national criminal scene. The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta is currently the most powerful and dangerous form of mafia in Europe. The motives of expansion The previous analytical scheme serves to explain why, over the last thirty years, the 'Ndrangheta became the hegemonic mafia organization in Italy and across Europe, expanding to at least a dozen countries and intertwining itself with other underworld organizations. [Extracted from the article]