All Blog Posts Tagged 'Ndrangheta' (26)

By David Amoruso

Davide Vadacca is considered a rising star within Sacra Corona Unita, Italy’s fourth largest criminal group. At the young age of 32 he is one of the organization’s leaders in the city of Lecce. Authorities say he is also the man behind a violent war that is terrorizing the honest, hardworking people of the Italian city.…

By Angelo Carmelo Gallitto



Italian organized crime, divided in Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita, is a rich and powerful criminal enterprise…

As the sixth largest country in the world, Australia has a lot of room for people who are looking for new territory to commit crimes. Discovered by Dutch explorers, Australia eventually fell under British rule. The British used the far-away continent as an isolated prison in the sun after they lost control of the…

By David Amoruso

Antonio Madafferi, an honest and successful businessman or senior leader of the ‘Ndrangheta crime clan in Melbourne, Australia? It depends on who you ask, but police are quite certain that Madafferi runs one of the country’s most powerful criminal organizations, one that moves record-breaking amounts of drugs and has connections…

By David Amoruso

Police in Italy and the United States have busted up an international extortion racket run by the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta and the Gambino crime family in New York. Eight people in both countries were arrested today, including Francesco Palmeri, who, authorities claim, is a high-ranking member of the Gambino family.

As…

By David Amoruso

A large table with men seated around it in silence. One man does all the talking. “You can work in everything - extortion, cocaine, heroin,” he says. That man is mob boss Antonio Nesci, and every word he utters is captured on video giving it the feel of a Hollywood movie. Only this is real life. Swiss police just caught a meeting of the…

Intro written by Angelo Carmelo Gallitto



The Calabrian “Honoured Society”, well known as “’Ndrangheta”, is the equivalent of Sicilian Mafia in Calabria region, south Italy. However its origin is unknown, it emerged later than other Italian organizations, maybe because Calabria was more isolated than others even inside south eastern…

By David Amoruso

It’s a bad time to be a secretive criminal organization. Today, Italian authorities released video of a ‘Ndrangheta elite swearing-in ceremony after concluding a two year investigation resulting in the arrest of forty suspected members of the criminal brotherhood from Calabria.  

“It's the first time that the swearing in, with the…

By David Amoruso

‘Ndrangheta boss Pantaleone Mancuso was arrested last month as he tried to cross the Argentinian border into Brazil. He is wanted in Italy for Mafia association and two attempted murders and had been on the run since April. Mancuso heads the ‘Ndrangheta’s financially most powerful clan that has connections to drug…

By David Amoruso

A joint operation by the FBI and Italian authorities has shut down an international narcotics pipeline between South America and Europe. During raids in the United States and Italy agents arrested 26 people. The investigation targeted the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta and the New York Gambino crime family. And once more, the FBI managed to…

By David Amoruso

“And like that, poof. He's gone.”

Vito Rizzuto, leader of the Mafia in Montreal, passed away today at age 67. He was hospitalized on Sunday for heart problems and was suffering from lung cancer. His death, of natural causes no less, comes as a huge surprise. Rizzuto was an enigma throughout his criminal career and had a knack for not…

By David Amoruso

It’s a Mafia mystery! Italian authorities are scratching their heads at the disappearance of ‘Ndrangheta boss-turned informant Antonino Lo Giudice. Lo Giudice was supposed to testify in court, but instead left a message on Thursday recanting all his testimony and then disappeared from witness protection.

According to news group ADN…

By Steven Ralph

In part 4 of his series on organized crime in Australia, Steven Ralph details the bloody war fought between members of the same ‘Ndrangheta cell in Melbourne in the 1960s. A fight for control over rackets, and revenge.

“Muratore family;

I do rite this letter in English as I want your kids to read your roten old man…

Italy has produced three of the world’s most infamous criminal groups. Cosa Nostra from Sicily, the Camorra from Campania, and the ‘Ndrangheta from Calabria continue to hold the country in a stranglehold. But as Italians migrated to other countries, so did these criminal gangs. Steven Ralph has researched the presence of these Italian mafia groups in…

By Steven Ralph (He is a beginning writer and will be writing articles on a number of Italian-Australian crimes and criminals, whether overtly mafia related or simply ethnically Italian. Stay tuned for some good stories from the land down under.)

In his classic 1970 work The Criminal Brotherhoods, respected author David Leon Chandler cites information gleaned from…

By Steven Ralph (He is a beginning writer and will be writing articles on a number of Italian-Australian crimes and criminals, whether overtly mafia related or simply ethnically Italian. Stay tuned for some good stories from the land down under.)

“I have a hard time getting my head around the idea of an Australian crime family. “Leave the gun, take another…