Roberto Saviano - ZeroZeroZero

Australia — like Canada— has become such a ’ndrangheta colony that an independent Crimine has been established there, divided into six mandamenti, or districts, that coordinate directly with the Polsi Crimine, taking part in their decisions. Even the codes for affiliation and promotion to higher ranks have made their way to Australia. The illegal activities it engages in change over time, but the codes remain the same, regardless of where they are. Its strength, which allows it to take full advantage of globalization, rests on a double tie: on the one hand blood and homeland, on the other disciplined by immaterial bonds of rules and rites.

The ’ndrine began arriving in Australia, along with honest immigrants, in the early 1900s, then in earnest after World War II. They set about reinvesting dirty money from Italy in legal activities, and began cultivating cannabis, for which there was an endless amount of space, fertile terrain, and favorable climactic conditions. Then cocaine arrived, and all the families there — originally from Platì, and as well as from Sinopoli and Siderno, which are tied to the powerful Canadian branch — got in on the business.

Nicola Ciconte kept up his close contact with Vincenzo Barbieri, who, according to investigations, sent him another 500 kilos of cocaine, this time from Italy. But mostly he laundered money. For most of his life his official job has been as a broker, a financial broker. So Barbieri turned to him not only to get cocaine into the Southern Hemisphere, but also — and more important — money. Ciconte, who was not always reliable, was another contact who often caused problems for U Ragioniere. But in the end he allegedly bounced the money through Hong Kong and some other offshore channels so as to launder and deposit it clean in Australian, and even New Zealand, banks. The Calabrian tree doesn’t seem to touch the minor Pacific islands. Maybe because there are so few banks there.

Vincenzo Barbieri was killed in March 2011, in a classic mafia ambush. A gray Audi A3 pulled up alongside him late one afternoon, right as he stepped out of a tobacco shop. Two killers, their faces covered, got out of the car and unloaded a 7.65 caliber and a sawed-off shotgun into him. The shotgun wasn’t to kill, but rather to tear the victim’s flesh apart in a sign of contempt. They shot him in the head and got back in the car, the motor still running. Panicked shopkeepers lowered their shutters; passersby ducked into coffee shops as much to avoid the danger of seeing too much as to escape the shooting. A well-oiled response, a primitive instinct, even though there hadn’t been any executions in San Calogero for quite a while. Barbieri hadn’t lived there for years, yet they killed him in the center of his hometown, right in those narrow, twisting alleyways, without worrying about the people on the street or the video cameras trained on them. The burned-out car was found four days later, a few miles away.

Who wanted Barbieri dead? Or who more than anybody else? Why right then? For the ’ndrangheta, U Ragioniere had committed plenty of errors. Cocaine importation, through Fuduli and his companies, had already been marred by fuckups and foul play. But whenever possible, “men of honor” prefer to solve conflicts with money, which is much quieter and more useful than lead. The answer lies in Barbieri’s expansion, with the help of his accomplice Francesco “Fatty” Ventrici, into another wealthy region in northern Italy, the Emilia Romagna.

Business deals are easier to negotiate there, and the lifestyle is much more free and relaxed. Nobody there objects if you build a big rustic villa for your family, hold meetings in your rec room, or enjoy the garish luxury of your living room, watched over and blessed by a huge oil painting of your father. When evening comes you drive the half hour from the new development in the countryside to the old town to satisfy the rules of your house arrest. Which is what Ventrici does. They don’t even scowl at you if you register your fleet of Porsches, Mercedeses, and Maseratis in someone else’s name, or if you prefer to live right in the center of Bologna, in a fancy penthouse on Via Saffi. Which is what Barbieri does. When the place is searched in June 2009 and he’s found with €118,295 in cash, he is arrested for illegal financial transactions. It’s the first stumbling block in many years. It reminds the Bologna magistrates of Barbieri’s first arrest in Emilia. While under judicial supervision he had spent several months in room 115 of the Grand Hotel Baglioni, the only five-star hotel in the capital of Emilia Romagna.

Barbieri played the wealthy southern Italian gentleman, taking advantage of the trust he inspired, while Ventrici played the complementary figure of the nouveau riche who is still a hard worker, a simple man at heart. Neither one fit the stereotype of the mafioso. Besides, it’s not all that remarkable, even in Emilia, that all sorts of people turn out to be loaded. So the two of them went on buying, buying, buying, hatching ever more ambitious expansion projects. Ventrici controled the Futur Program, a real estate agency in San Lazzaro di Savena affiliated with Gabetti (a major real estate chain). Barbieri, without even talking price, invested in the King Rose Hotel in Granarolo, a three-star hotel with fifty-five rooms conveniently located near the Bologna convention center. Then shares in the clothing company Cherri Fashion, the Montecarlo café in Via Ugo Bassi, real estate, land.

Even though they were much better off far from Calabria and its rules, above all that unspoken rule that — as in Colombia — envy is more deadly than cancer, they always maintained their ties to the homeland. It wasn’t a question of nostalgia but of business. Francesco Ventrici controlled M5, a construction company he employed in Emilia as well, the Union Frigo Transport Logistic, and the VM Trans (which had replaced Ventrans after it was confiscated thanks to Operation Decollo). All registered in Calabria, even though the road haulage company had a branch in Castel San Pietro, in the province of Bologna. His trucks meant he was still a force to contend with. Ventrans had an exclusive deal with Lidl, a multinational deep-discount supermarket company in Calabria. The confiscation of the company did not prevent VM Trans from taking over that contract. But in 2009 a problem arose. Lidl decided to use other carriers as well — a question of costs. “It’s either us or them,” Ventrici screamed, and halted pickups and deliveries. Police reports started piling up, fast and furious. Drivers beaten up, verbal abuse that went from broken legs to death threats. “You’re not unloading this truck, your boss has to come do it, that way we’ll burn him alive… your coworkers have already been warned…”

The first company turned down the job. Lidl tried again with an Umbrian company, paying armed guards to accompany the drivers to Calabria. But the violence didn’t stop. In the end, as Decollo ter revealed, the Lidl managers met with the owner of VM Trans in Massa Lombarda, in the province of Ravenna. Ventrici, playing the part of the big boss, declared, “You want a war, but in Calabria not even the pope would win a war.” And in case his words weren’t enough, that same day the drivers supplying a supermarket in Taurianova were attacked by armed assailants. The two pistol-wielding ambassadors fled as soon as they saw security guards arrive. But Lidl Italia had had enough. Too many complications, too many losses. So they reestablished an exclusive relationship with Ventrici until he was indicted for this story as well. According to the magistrates, the criminal businessman was able to break Lidl, forcing it, through the use of the violent behavior and threats described above, “to reconsider its organizational strategies, and to renounce the assured economic advantages, including those of competitive prices, that would have resulted from using multiple carriers to transport goods to Calabria.”