ITALY:SIMMERING GANGLAND warfare formed the background to a major police operation yesterday morning in and around Crotone in the southern Italian region of Calabria in which 42 alleged mafiosi were arrested.
Three hundred police officers took part in the early morning raids, which resulted in the seizure of weapons and explosives as well as in the arrests.
For some time now investigators have suggested that the Calabrian Mafia, the 'Ndrangheta, has become the most powerful criminal organisation in Italy. Estimated to have a turnover of €32-36 million per annum (3.4 per cent of Italian GDP), the 'Ndrangheta is believed to have 3,000- 5,000kg of cocaine on the road at any time, en route for delivery to Europe and North America.
In this context the organisation has outgrown its better known Sicilian peer, Cosa Nostra.
Traditionally a highly secretive organisation, the 'Ndrangheta earned itself unwelcome international headlines last August when six Italians were shot dead in a Mafia-style execution outside a restaurant in the German town of Duisburg.
Investigators are convinced that the Duisburg killings were the result of a 17-year-long bloody feud between rival 'Ndrangheta families based in the small Calabrian village of San Luca.
Yesterday's police raids, while not linked to the Duisburg killings, were partly prompted by fears of more 'Ndrangheta feuding. The killings two weeks ago of Luca Megna and Giuseppe Cavallo, members of rival Mafia families in Crotone, suggested that gangland warfare had broken out.
A police statement yesterday said that the arrests were an initial response to those "recent events".
Megna (37), son of an 'Ndrangheta boss currently in detention, was gunned down and killed outside his home in Papanice di Crotone, in an incident in which his five-year-old daughter was hit in the head by a stray bullet and his wife less seriously injured. Megna's daughter remains in a grave condition.
Two days later, on March 25th, a rival mafioso, Cavallo (27), was gunned down in similar fashion in Papanice di Crotone. Cavallo's wife was also injured in the shooting, which was witnessed by his two-year-old son, who was uninjured.
Deputy minister for the interior Marco Minniti called yesterday's operation "another tough blow against the 'Ndrangheta" and another small step on the road to "freeing Calabria's economy from the tentacles of the 'Ndrangheta".