More than 200 convicted in Italy’s mafia maxi-trial : NPR

An Italian tribunal on Monday convicted 207 individuals and sentenced them to a mixed 2,100 years in jail on prices associated to their membership in Italy’s ‘ndrangheta organized crime syndicate, one of many world’s strongest, intensive and rich drug-trafficking teams.

It took over an hour and 40 minutes to learn aloud the court docket’s prolonged verdict, together with the acquittal of 131 different defendants. The drama unfolded in a bunker-stye courtroom within the southern Calabria area, the place the mob group was initially based mostly.

The ‘ndrangheta has quietly amassed energy in Italy and overseas because the Sicilian Mafia misplaced affect and now holds virtually a monopoly on cocaine importation in Europe, in keeping with anti-mafia prosecutors who led the investigation in southern Italy. The group additionally has bases in North and South America and is energetic in Africa, Italian prosecutors preserve, and ‘ndrangheta figures have been arrested lately round Europe and in Brazil and Lebanon.

The defendants had been charged with crimes that embrace drug and arms trafficking, extortion and mafia affiliation, a time period in Italy’s penal code for members of organized crime teams. Others had been charged with appearing in complicity with the ‘ndrangheta with out really being a member.

The fees grew out of an investigation of 12 clans linked to a convicted ‘ndrangheta boss. The central determine, Luigi Mancuso, served 19 years in an Italian jail for his position in main what investigators allege is without doubt one of the ‘ndrangheta’s strongest crime households, based mostly within the city of Vibo Valentia.

Vincenzo Capomolla, deputy chief prosecutor of Catanzaro, mentioned prosecutors’ total case held up with the convictions and confirmed the stranglehold the ‘ndrangheta held on Vibo Valentia.

“The infiltration of the legal group within the province of Vibo Valentia was so deep-rooted and so widespread, so alarming, so disturbing that I feel it may be famous that there was no facet of the lifetime of the social financial cloth of the province that was not conditioned by the capability of the pressure of intimidation of this so harmful legal group,” he mentioned.

Giuseppe Di Renzo, protection legal professional for a number of of the defendants, nonetheless famous that greater than a 3rd of the unique defendants had been totally acquitted, whereas others had been discovered not responsible of some prices.

He criticized the disparate and huge variety of defendants, saying they confirmed there was no cohesive thread to the prosecutors’ case. However Catanzaro’s former chief prosecutor who launched the investigation, Nicola Gratteri, mentioned mafia trials usually need to solid huge nets due to the very nature of how the legal syndicates function, infiltrating throughout huge swaths of society.

The trial happened in a specifically constructed high-security bunker. A part of an industrial park in Lamezia Terme, the bunker is so huge that video screens had been anchored to the ceiling so members may view the proceedings.

Primarily based virtually fully on blood ties, the ‘ndrangheta was considerably resistant to turncoats for many years, however the ranks of these turning state’s proof have gotten extra substantial. Within the present trial, they included a relative of Mancuso’s.

A number of dozen informants within the case got here from the ‘ndrangheta, whereas others previously belonged to Sicily’s Cosa Nostra.

Regardless of the massive variety of defendants, the trial wasn’t Italy’s greatest one involving alleged mobsters.

In 1986, 475 alleged members of the Sicilian Mafia went on trial in a equally constructed bunker in Palermo. The proceedings resulted in additional than 300 convictions and 19 life sentences. That trial helped reveal lots of the brutal strategies and murderous methods of the island’s high mob bosses, together with sensational killings that bloodied the Palermo space throughout years of energy struggles.

In distinction, the trial involving the ‘ndrangheta was geared toward securing convictions and sentences based mostly on alleged acts of collusion amongst mobsters and native politicians, public officers, businessmen and members of secret lodges to point out how deeply rooted the syndicate is in Calabria.

Awash in cocaine trafficking revenues, the ‘ndrangheta has wolfed up inns, eating places, pharmacies, automobile dealerships and different companies all through Italy, particularly in Rome and the nation’s prosperous north, legal investigations have revealed.

The shopping for spree unfold throughout Europe because the syndicate sought to launder illicit revenues but in addition to make “clear” cash by working reliable companies, together with within the tourism and hospitality sectors, investigators alleged.