Mafia Boss : “The State is Me.”
▻https://www.occrp.org/en/blog/6740-mafia-boss-the-state-is-me
“Mandamento,” a long-planned operation aimed at crushing one of the world’s most dangerous criminal groups, had ended with a big catch. It also helped investigators piece together, with more detail than ever before, how the group operates.
The Calabria-based ‘Ndrangheta stretches its tentacles throughout Europe. Italian prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, who wrote an authoritative book on the cocaine trade, believes that the syndicate controls over 40 percent of the world’s market of the drug.
Experts say that in 2013, it made more money than Deutsche Bank and McDonald’s put together, with a turnover of €53 billion (US$ 70.41 billion), mostly from drug trafficking.
These huge profits are, for the most part, safely invested in off-shore accounts. But the organization’s soul still rests on the sun-dried hills of southern Italy. This is where all the important decisions are made.
Over the decades, the old farmlands of Calabria have turned into a network of tiny towns and villages, connected by country roads that cross barren fields, dotted with the concrete skeletons of unfinished houses. It is one of Italy’s poorest regions.