Italian mafia laundering cocaine money Down Under

THE Australian arm of the Italian mafia, thought to have been in decline 10 years ago, has resurfaced as a key player in a $38 billion cocaine trafficking operation.

Italian authorities say the Calabrian mafia in Australia has been instrumental in creating a “real criminal network”, transporting drugs globally from South America and laundering the proceeds through sophisticated banking schemes.

The allegations are contained in a report to the Italian Parliament by the Anti-Mafia Commission which details the results of a four-year investigation and challenges the view of Australian authorities that mafia operations here had declined by the 1990s.

Click here to download the report (.PDF, 2944kb)

The resurgent crime network has little central control, however, with the criminals operating franchise operations “like a fast-food chain”, the report says.

The Italian report names several “families” established here - including the Sergi, Barbaro, Perre and Papalia clans - as being part of the secretive Italian ‘Ndrangheta crime group.

“The network was formed by the criminals in southern Italy, with import-export duties granting the drugs to Australia (where the clan had another base),” the report says.

“They used to make holes in marble bricks to conceal the transportation of hundreds of kilograms of cocaine.

“Part of the recycling (money laundering) happened in Australia using a sophisticated method, with specialists able to take care of bank movements needed for transferring the money.”

The ‘Ndrangheta - also known as L’Onorata Societa or Honoured Society – became notorious in Australia in the 1970s when anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay was gunned down in a hotel car park in rural NSW sparking a royal commission into drug trafficking.

The Commission report says ‘Ndrangheta members first came to Australia in the 1930s and today the group provides an effectively franchised structure and culture in its global operations.

“It (‘ndrangheta) offers the same, recognisable brand and identical criminal product all over the world,” the Italian report says.

The group has developed “like al-Qaeda with a similar tentacular structure”, without a centralised leadership, with Australian cells linked to those in Italy, Spain, Venezuela and Colombia and forming a global trafficking network.

The most recent Australian report on the Calabrian mafia was published almost 13 years ago.

This week the Australian Crime Commission said it stood by a 1995 report by its predecessor – the National Crime Authority (NCA) - which suggested the mafia’s activities in Australia were in decline.

Former NCA chairman John Broome, an expert on trans-national financial crime, said there were reports the mafia was regrouping in Australia, and saying Italian organised crime groups were laundering money here was “like saying the sun rises in the east”.

“I have certainly seen references in more recent times to a ‘resurgence’ of Italian (organised) crime,” Professor Broome said.

“I would certainly believe that anybody involved in serious crime in Australia needs to launder that money… and I’ve certainly seen some references to Italians being involved in that sort of process.”

Professor Broome said the 1995 report changed the belief held by authorities about “the Italians” being a highly organised and structured unit.

“The main message that came out of all that was, in so far as there were Italians involved in criminal activity in Australia, the picture was very different than that painted by the American law enforcement’s experience.

“It was not the ‘crime family’ situation as it was in other places.”

He said following the NCA report’s release, authorities viewed crime figures as individual entrepreneurs and not being members of a hierarchy.

Italian authorities have previously said Colombian drug cartels almost “exclusively” sell their product to the Calabrian mafia because they trusted members more than those from other organisations.

They have also said the ‘Ndrangheta had a monopoly on the European cocaine trade and claimed the organisation had an estimated annual turnover of nearly 36 billion Euros ($61 billion).

The cocaine trafficking network is believed to be worth $38 billion.

It was also revealed this week that the Italian mafia had joined forces with Dutch and Chinese to flood Australia with ecstasy with the Italian’s extensive network of contacts used to keep the smuggling secret.

Links

Report of the Anti-Mafia Commission
Wikipedia: 'Ndrangheta
BBC: The shooting that shocked Europe

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