‘Ndrangheta, Italy enters the “megaproceso” judgment …

More than three hundred suspected members of the ‘Ndrangheta, the mafia of the Italian region of Calabria, They will be judged from Wednesday in a process considered historic because of its size and importance.

In total, they will be 355 gangsters, politicians and businessmen What They will sit on the bench of the court of Vibo Valentia, accused of belonging to this criminal organization or of collaborating with it. While 88 other subjects have opted for the shortened process and will be judged in parallel from January 27.

All these people were arrested or charged in the framework of the operation “Rinascita-Scott”, directed and completed in 2019 by the prosecutor of Catanzaro, Nicola Gratteri, against the Calabrian clans in Italy, Germany, Bulgaria and Switzerland .

They must respond to charges such as belonging to a mafia association, homicide, attempted murder, extortion, illegal possession of weapons and explosives, influence peddling, corruption, abuse of power and drug trafficking.

This is an anti-Mafia process of great importance, surpassed in number of accused only by that of Palermo in 1986, when the Sicilian Cosa Nostra was tried, persecuted by judges such as Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, both murdered in 1992.

For this occasion, it was necessary to build a “classroom-bunker” in an industrial area of ​​Lamezia Terme which will allow the trial to take place in complete safety and to accommodate the hundreds of people who will attend. And it is that in addition to the 355 defendants, with their respective lawyers, In total, 913 witnesses who have violated the “omertà” – the law of silence – will pass through the place to denounce the abuses and crimes of which they have allegedly been victims.

At the center of the investigation is the “‘Ndrina”, or Mancuso clan, considered by researchers to be one of the most powerful and influential families in Calabria’ Ndrangheta. His patriarch, Luigi Mancuso, one of the greatest authorities of this mafia, will be tried again for controlling the affairs of the clan after his release in 2012, when he spent twenty years of his life behind bars for his criminal activities.

What is’ Ndrangheta?

Currently the ‘Ndrangheta (word of Greek origin which means “handsome man” or courageous) It is the “most powerful mafia in Italy” and one “of the most prosperous on the planet”, since invoices around 50,000 million euros per year, as prosecutor Gratteri explained in press statements.

With the impenetrable mountains of Calabria and the city of San Luca as a stronghold, it has long been underestimated as a minor criminal organization confined to this territory. However, over time It grew and spread its tentacles across the world through the business of gambling, public tenders and, above all, drugs which largely came from Latin America. at the Calabrian port of Gioia Tauro.

From now on, the authorities intend to try to condemn the gangsters, but also the soldiers, the politicians and the businessmen who collaborated in the expansion of this criminal organization.

Among the accused are Giancarlo Pittelli, lawyer and former parliamentarian for Silvio Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia; businessman Mario Lo Riggio or the former mayor of Nicotera, Salvatore Rizzo.

Heinous crime

A few days ago, it became known that the Italian mafia was involved in the heinous crime of Maria chindamo, a 44-year-old businesswoman. Wife she was kidnapped, murdered and thrown to pigs for food. It was the punishment of the Calabrian mafia because Maria refused to sell her field.

The woman had been missing since May 6, 2016, when her family reported her “mysterious disappearance”. After four years, Calabrian Mafia member Antonio Cossidente confessed that Chindamo murderer was drug trafficker Salvatore Ascano who lived in front of the victim’s house. Following Cossidente’s confession, Ascano was arrested in July 2020 and then released for lack of evidence.

However, Cossidente gave investigators terrifying details of how the woman was killed, stating that she was killed as punishment for not wanting to sell her land.