A parliamentary report into the 'ndrangheta says Italy's notorious crime syndicate spreads its tentacles like al-Qaeda and resembles a fast-food chain because of its ability to market its brand as it expands abroad.
The report is the first comprehensive study by parliament's anti-Mafia commission on the 'ndrangheta, a group that came into the spotlight last summer with the killing of six Italians outside a pizzeria in Germany.
It offers solid evidence to claims by investigators that the syndicate has eclipsed the Sicilian Mafia in recent years in power and international reach.
"Today the 'ndrangheta ... is the most modern organization, the most powerful one as far as cocaine trafficking goes," the commission said in a 239-page report, which was released on Wednesday.
It is "the one able to obtain and offer deadly weapons of war and destruction."
The commission report said the 'ndrangheta has reached a "basically exclusive" control over cocaine imports from Colombia, forcing all other criminal organizations, including Sicily's Cosa Nostra, to deal with it if they want to have access to the drug.
Over the decades, the group, originally based in the southern Calabria region, has spread to central and northern Italy, in much of Europe as well as in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia, Morocco, Canada, the US and Australia, the report said.
"In the same way as great fast-food-chains, it offers -- all over the world, in places very different from one another -- the identical, recognizable, reliable brand and the same criminal product," it said.
What sets the 'ndrangheta apart from other crime syndicates, including its equivalent in Sicily, is mostly its structure, which is strictly based on close family ties. This makes the 'ndrangheta less vulnerable to the risk of turncoats, whose testimony has dealt harsh blows to the Mafia in the past years.
The structure also allows for an effective infiltration in other countries.
The 'ndrangheta has developed "like al-Qaeda, with a similar tentacular structure," and without a centralized leadership, the report says.
Feuds between powerful families have proven deadly.
The past summer's slayings of six Italians in Germany were seen as a family vendetta and the latest chapter of the long-standing feud between rival clans.
Last week, the boss of what investigators described as a "ferocious" family in the 'ndrangheta syndicate, Pasquale Condello, was arrested in the regional capital, Reggio Calabria. The man had been on the run for 20 years and was on the police list of Italy's most dangerous fugitives.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS