Mafia gangs are working together to control world drug trade, says top Italian prosecutor

Italy’s new national anti-mafia prosecutor said Thursday that Italian organised crime gangs are increasingly cooperating to control international drug trafficking.

Prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho told an anti-mafia conference in Milan that the Italian mafias “are not isolated. By now, they move together. The ‘ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra, Camorra, also the groups from Puglia” work together, coordinating, for example, ports they use for heroin and cocaine shipments.

“They are able to change the commander on a ship in Panama, and insert their own commander, so the ship can handle a big transport of drugs,” Cafiero De Raho said, illustrating their reach.

While in southern Italy organised crime “occupies the entire territory,” in the north the mafia is making inroads by entering the real economy by preying on businesspeople in difficulty who accept financial help to keep their business alive, until eventually they are forced out.

Cafiero De Raho urged Italian law enforcement and magistrates to cooperate on exchanging data and other information, saying it was “the first step in the strategy” to defeat organised crime.

Outgoing national anti-mafia prosecutor Franco Roberti said while everyone wants to know who the new “boss of bosses” of the Sicilian mafia could be now that Salvatore “Toto” Riina has died after nearly a quarter-century in jail, the real question is why the mafia persists and gains strength.