The Mafia's Secret Bunkers This World


The Mafia's Secret Bunkers

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Transcript


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This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

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There's a new front line in the war against organised crime.

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Carabinieri!

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'In southern Italy's rugged highlands,

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'a previously unknown criminal group meets.'

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It was just about here that some of the top bosses were standing

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having their secret meeting.

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Called the Ndrangheta,

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its bosses are Europe's biggest cocaine traffickers.

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Carabinieri!

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The police are fighting back,

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forcing Mafiosi underground...

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..into bizarre and sophisticated bunkers.

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Holy moley.

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'From here, they run their criminal empires,

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'protected by a wall of silence.'

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They dug up the whole street to bury their bunkers...

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..and nobody breathed a word!

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This is the story of a little-known Mafia,

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whose secret inner workings are only now coming to light.

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This is Calabria,

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a beautiful and blighted region at the very tip of Italy's boot.

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As a historian, I've spent years studying Italian organised crime.

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Now I've come to this mountainous peninsula,

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a stone's throw from the island of Sicily,

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to investigate Italy's most mysterious and powerful Mafia,

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the Ndrangheta.

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The Cacciatore, the hunters, are an elite law-enforcement unit.

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They've agreed to take me deep into Ndrangheta territory.

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Lieutenant Angelo Zizzi and his men

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often have to operate under the cover of darkness.

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'After two-and-a-half hours

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'we reach a small village high up in the mountains.

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'It's four in the morning.'

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With the mist on the mountains here, and the silence,

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there's something really spooky about this place.

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'Now abandoned, this house was once used as a base

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'by Calabrian criminals.'

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There's something fiendishly clever about this mechanism,

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the kind of James Bond villain fashion.

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'The concealed entrance leads to a narrow passage.'

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It's pretty tight in here.

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'This secret hideout was discovered almost by chance

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'when the team were pursuing a group of Ndranghetan gangsters.

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'When Zizzi and his team first entered,

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'there was no sign of the men they were after.

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'What they'd stumbled upon was not just one concealed bunker,

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'it was a whole warren of underground passageways,

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'false walls and secret rooms.

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'The tunnels fan out under the village,

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'linking hideouts and escape routes.'

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So the tunnel system was a kind of map of the Ndrangheta network

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in this village.

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'It's a claustrophobic maze, completely disorientating.'

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This is a completely different house.

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It's a completely different house.

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Another secret entrance under the stairs

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and we're into a completely new house.

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Absolutely amazing.

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'By the time I got out, dawn had broken.'

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We came in somewhere over there!

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When the Cacciatore got into the first part of this system,

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there were six people in there.

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The Cacciatore had surrounded the whole area,

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and there was a chase through this bunker system

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with its different exits, each Cacciatore having to follow

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a different Ndranghetisti as he made his escape.

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Three of the Ndranghetisti got away,

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and having been through that system of tunnels, I can really see why.

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Building a subterranean labyrinth was a major enterprise.

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Somebody must have noticed all the work going on,

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but not a soul told the authorities.

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For more than a century, the men of the Ndrangheta

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have been the undisputed authority in these mountain villages.

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To understand the nature of their dominance,

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you need to understand the geography of Calabria.

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And that means taking to the air.

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This is very exciting... for two reasons -

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one, because I've never been in a helicopter before,

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and two, because now we're going to see

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some of the wildest parts of Calabria from the air.

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We took off from the city of Reggio Calabria,

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one of the Mafia power bases on the coast.

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But the heart of Ndrangheta territory is Aspromonte,

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"the harsh mountain".

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There's no other word for Aspromonte but majestic.

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An extraordinary sight!

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Aspromonte is inaccessible.

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The law has never had much of a foothold here.

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The Ndrangheta is a secret society of criminals,

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and for a long time these remote mountain settlements

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have been its fortresses.

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In the 1970s and '80s,

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the Ndrangheta took to kidnapping for ransom,

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using these remote mountains to hide the captives,

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often for years.

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Each of these villages is controlled by a different clan.

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If you know where to look, it's not hard to see who's in charge.

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We're about to fly over a villa

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that a Ndrangheta boss had built for himself. And he wanted it

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to look exactly like Tony Montana's villa in Scarface, the movie.

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I suppose all gangsters are gangster wannabes at heart.

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Today, the main source of the Ndrangheta's wealth and power

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lies 20 minutes' flight northwest, at the port of Gioia Tauro.

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Opened in the 1990s,

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Gioia Tauro is now the biggest container port in the Mediterranean.

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It should have been good news for this underdeveloped region.

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For the Ndrangheta,

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the port of Gioia Tauro is the hen that laid the golden eggs.

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Extorting a protection payment on every container is just the start.

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The main illegal business here is smuggling.

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TRANSLATION: Ordinary commercial routes are used as Trojan horses.

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From bananas to frozen prawns,

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from iron to hazelnuts.

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Any cargo shipped from South America to Europe,

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and the port of Gioia Tauro,

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can be used as cover for Ndrangheta's cocaine.

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Thousands of containers pass through the port every day.

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It's impossible to check and scan more than a handful of them.

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The best chance of catching the cocaine shipment

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is through intelligence on the ground,

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but even there, the criminals are often one step ahead.

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TRANSLATION: The Ndrangheta plant their own men in the port.

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Just like we watch them, they watch us.

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The sheer scale of this place is awe-inspiring.

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The ships are like tower blocks,

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the piles of containers go on for kilometres, and if you think

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that a big load of cocaine is about the size of a wardrobe,

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it makes it very clear that the old cliche

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about looking for a needle in a haystack just doesn't come close.

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It's estimated no more than 20% of the cocaine coming through the port

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is intercepted by the authorities.

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But even that amounts to an impressive haul.

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A 100,000 euros just for that,

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just for that and look at it.

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This is a whole wardrobe full of the stuff.

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And that's not all.

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Wow!

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'Three tons of pure cocaine have been seized here

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'in the last two years.'

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And of course this is only a tiny part of the total amount of cocaine

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that's flooding through the port of Gioia Tauro.

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This is quite extraordinary.

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The Calabrian Mafia, the Ndrangheta, is today the biggest

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cocaine-trafficking syndicate in Europe.

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The trade is global, but some of the profits end up close to home.

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Overlooking the port is the town of Rosarno -

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home to one of the Ndrangheta's most ruthless cells...

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..the Pesce clan.

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Carabinieri Special Agent Giuseppe Lumia

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knows more about the Pesce clan than anyone.

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As well as cocaine-trafficking,

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the Pesce clan grew rich from extortion and fraud.

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In this small, rundown town,

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the clan members enjoyed the good life,

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none more so than their chief, Ciccio Pesce.

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The house occupies a position like a baron's castle in the old days.

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At 30 years of age, Ciccio Pesce became the youngest known boss

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of an Ndrangheta clan. His swift rise to power

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was witnessed by a man who has since become one of the very few

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Calabrian Mafiosi to turn State witness.

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For security reasons, we can't reveal his identity.

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We'll call him Tony.

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What kind of man is Ciccio Pesce?

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TRANSLATION: I've known him since he was a child, Ciccio Pesce.

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When he was 14 or 15, on New Year's Eve,

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he went round town with his friends with some Kalashnikovs.

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He sprayed the streets and the shop shutters with bullets.

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There was no particular reason to do so. He just wanted to make a mess,

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because power was growing in his hands.

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Extreme violence was the basis of Ciccio Pesce's power.

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TRANSLATION: People respected him out of fear.

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They were scared of rebelling,

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because he'd become the absolute ruler of our area.

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As one of the poorest regions in Europe,

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Calabria received huge subsidies from the European Union

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for public construction works and farming. Mobsters like Ciccio Pesce

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have stolen much of that money.

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Tony helped Pesce make millions through a colossal scam involving...

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oranges!

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TRANSLATION: The oranges had to be delivered to a plant,

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but we wouldn't take anything there.

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We would take the paperwork the night before, however,

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and in the morning it would be signed by corrupt officials,

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saying the oranges had been delivered.

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After 90 days, we would receive the funds for the oranges

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from the European Union.

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And how much did you make in an average year?

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TRANSLATION: I was small fry, but in a good year

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I could make 300,000 to 400,000 euros from oranges.

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And a boss like Ciccio Pesce, how much would he make?

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Someone like Ciccio Pesce, who owned the farms, the plants,

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the transport companies, everything -

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he'd make, out of the oranges scam alone,

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some five to six million euros a year.

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The clan would invest the money in drugs and weapons,

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and they would double it, even treble it.

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The Ndrangheta is highly territorial.

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When they fall foul of the law,

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bosses like Ciccio Pesce very rarely take flight.

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Instead, they go to ground close to home.

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TRANSLATION: The man of honour, the leader, never leaves his own turf.

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For them, a bunker is a investment if someone needs to lay low for a while,

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hoping the police will lose interest in them.

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Many of these bunkers were made of old shipping containers,

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sunk into the soil of the orange groves

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and kitted out with everything a boss would need to lie low.

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Of course a bunker is only safe if its location is kept secret.

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In Calabria, where the Ndrangheta is more feared than the law,

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the blanket of silence known as Omerta

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is as thick as anywhere in Italy.

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So it's not surprising

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that not many people have broken the regime of Omerta.

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I'm on my way now to find out what happens when you do.

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I've been given an address some ten miles south of Rosarno.

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It looks like my arrival is being closely monitored.

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This fortified compound is where construction entrepreneur

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Gaetano Saffioti lives and works.

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'It's the only place Saffioti would agree to meet.'

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THEY EXCHANGE GREETINGS

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Saffioti's company grew from nothing

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into a multi-million-pound business

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until in 2002, the profits crashed.

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For years, like most businesses in the area,

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Saffioti had paid regular extortion money to the Ndrangheta,

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but as he became more successful,

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they wanted more and more control.

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When he tried to buy a plot of land, the mobsters made their move.

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TRANSLATION: And then what happened?

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One night they set fire to my bulldozer

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to tell me, "You've done something you shouldn't have."

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Saffioti turned to the state for help,

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but he soon learned who's really in charge in Calabria.

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I went to report who'd done it,

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I was told perhaps it's better you keep that to yourself -

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you know how these things end up -

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and my heart sank.

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And so there is this facade of a state and there is this real state,

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paradoxically, the real state is the Ndrangheta.

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The campaign of intimidation escalated.

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In the middle of the day, they showed up and threatened my staff,

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including my brother. They gave him a tank of petrol and told him,

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"Pour this petrol over the vehicle and set it alight."

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Saffioti had been pushed to the edge. He decided to fight back.

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For months, Saffioti risked his life to capture his tormentors on film,

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as they came for their pay-off,

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on this occasion, several thousand pounds.

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In an unprecedented act,

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Saffioti took this evidence to a public prosecutor.

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On the night of January 25th 2002,

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45 Ndrangheta members were arrested.

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But this was not the end of Saffioti's problems.

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When someone talks about one's life changing overnight,

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it may sound exaggerated.

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But in this case, my world was really turned upside down overnight.

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My 65 employees must have learnt about the arrests before they came

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out in the papers,

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because in the morning only five showed up for work.

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On the same day, all of our orders dried up.

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The banks closed my accounts, even the active ones,

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not just the overdrafts. Cancelling my overdrafts was bad enough,

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but I couldn't even withdraw my own money.

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It was completely absurd, I was ostracised by everyone,

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as if I'd become a terrible criminal.

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Many of Saffioti's friends shunned him.

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In Calabria, even law-abiding citizens wouldn't risk defying

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the Ndrangheta by being seen with a man like him.

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45 bullets, one for each of the men that Saffioti had had arrested.

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And then the police turned up. They said, ""e are here for you,

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"because from now on, you're under protection."

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That was it.

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The beginning.

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The situation in Calabria can seem incomprehensible at first glance,

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but to really understand what's going on there, we need to take

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a step back, or rather take a trip across the straits to Sicily.

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This beautiful island has long been home to the notorious Cosa Nostra.

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For the last 30 years, the Italian state has been struggling to contain

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the most powerful criminal organisation in modern history.

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Coming to Palermo today, you have to make an effort to remember

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that 25 years ago, this was a city in the grip of terror.

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The bloodiest Mafia war in history was going on.

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Hundreds of people were being killed, bodies were being left

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burning in the street or taken out to the sea and dumped.

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Cosa Nostra was killing magistrates,

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policemen, journalists, politicians.

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That violence reached its savage climax

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with the 1992 bombing assassinations of anti-Mafia judges

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Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

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Cosa Nostra had declared war on the state

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and seemed to be winning.

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TRANSLATION: It felt like the country was on its knees.

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If they were able to blow up a motorway and kill magistrates

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under the highest level of protection

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and also kill our police colleagues escorting them,

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then I felt this was an extremely powerful and terrifying organisation

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which would stop at nothing.

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It's been a long, hard road for the state to win back credibility.

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A key success came in 2006 when, after 43 years on the run,

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Cosa Nostra's boss of bosses was finally arrested.

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TRANSLATION: The uncatchable had been caught.

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In that moment, the people felt a burst of courage

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and wanted to show it by coming to our Palermo headquarters

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to express solidarity with us,

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and the belief that this battle could be won.

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If organised crime is to be defeated,

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ordinary people need to be empowered to resist.

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They have to believe that police and judges

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are not in the pay of the mobsters,

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and that those who stand up to the Mafia will be protected.

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Now, in Sicily, that is beginning to happen.

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We promote a sort of a rebellion, a cultural revolution again.

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Edoardo Zaffuto is one of the founders of a grass-roots anti-Mafia group.

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Addio Pizzo, or Farewell Extortion,

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encourages ordinary Sicilians to come out and defy the Mafia.

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Cosa Nostra works like a shadow state, using extortion as its tax.

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Sometimes the Mafia ask just 10, 15 euros per month,

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that's a nominal payment. It's important for the Mafia that here

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and at the fish shop, as well as the vegetable shop

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they accept to pay protection money.

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So how many people do you think actually pay protection money

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-in this market, for example?

-80% of er...

-80%?

-Yes.

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Just round the corner from the market

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is a shop selling traditional Sicilian caps.

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When we started our campaign we started to distribute these stickers

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to the shopkeepers that are member of our campaign.

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The stickers say, "I pay who does not pay."

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So in a sense, I support those who say no to the Mafia.

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It works like a sort of a beware to the dog sign,

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you know, so it says, as soon as you will dare to ask pizzo here,

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you will be immediately reported to the police. And the consumers

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they know for sure just seeing this sticker that in this shop, um,

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not a single cent, er, goes to the Mafia.

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800 businesses have joined Addio Pizzo's anti-extortion campaign.

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In the huge task of eradicating the Mafia scourge,

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this is a small start, but the potential is revolutionary.

0:31:000:31:05

Back in Calabria, the anti-Mafia fight is a generation behind.

0:31:080:31:13

In fact, as the state focused on Sicily,

0:31:130:31:17

the Ndrangheta grew unchecked.

0:31:170:31:19

TRANSLATION: While Cosa Nostra was committed to its strategy of terror,

0:31:210:31:25

the Ndrangheta made a completely different choice.

0:31:250:31:28

-TRANSLATION:

-They were not interested in a war against the state.

0:31:300:31:33

They bought the state. Piece by piece.

0:31:330:31:36

They seeped into it.

0:31:360:31:37

They didn't need to fight it.

0:31:370:31:40

Ndrangheta remained in the shadows,

0:31:430:31:45

and in the shadows it grew in strength, power, organisation.

0:31:450:31:50

And above all, in wealth.

0:31:500:31:53

The Calabrian Mafia thrived on neglect, unknown to the world.

0:31:560:32:02

Even most Italians struggle to pronounce its name.

0:32:020:32:06

Until one night in 2007.

0:32:060:32:09

On the 15th August,

0:32:100:32:12

a frantic call was received in a small village in Calabria.

0:32:120:32:16

A distraught caller asked for "The Mamma"...

0:32:200:32:23

..codename for a notorious Ndrangheta boss.

0:32:250:32:28

PHONE LINE DISCONNECTS

0:32:540:32:56

This dramatic call was not made from Calabria.

0:32:560:32:59

Not even from Italy.

0:32:590:33:01

It came from 1,000 miles away.

0:33:010:33:03

From the German city of Duisburg.

0:33:060:33:09

-TRANSLATION:

-They'd likely never seen anything like this in Germany.

0:33:150:33:19

At the scene, there were two cars.

0:33:210:33:24

Bodies splayed out,

0:33:240:33:25

the acrid smell of cordite that we are so used to here.

0:33:250:33:29

Blood running on the street.

0:33:290:33:32

This is a German street.

0:33:320:33:34

Clean, orderly, it's not the woods of Aspromonte.

0:33:340:33:39

Six men were murdered that night.

0:33:400:33:43

In the pocket of one of the victims,

0:33:440:33:46

baffled German police found a mysterious charred image.

0:33:460:33:49

Looking inside the pockets of those boys,

0:33:520:33:54

they found an image of St Michael the Archangel,

0:33:540:33:57

with a burnt hole in the centre.

0:33:570:33:59

That's what's used in the initiation ceremony

0:33:590:34:02

for young Ndrangheta members.

0:34:020:34:05

That was the business card of the Ndrangheta.

0:34:050:34:07

The dead men were Calabrian gangsters

0:34:100:34:12

investing their criminal profits in German hotels and restaurants.

0:34:120:34:16

But their murders were the result of a bloody feud back in Calabria.

0:34:160:34:21

For the world it was like a slap in the face.

0:34:240:34:26

What on earth is happening?

0:34:260:34:28

Where do these people come from? Who are they?

0:34:280:34:32

What is the Ndrangheta?

0:34:320:34:35

The killings stunned the Italian state into action.

0:34:350:34:38

Seasoned anti-Mafia investigators were recruited to lead a crackdown.

0:34:400:34:44

TRANSLATION: The Duisburg incident revealed

0:34:480:34:51

how dangerous Ndrangheta was.

0:34:510:34:52

And that made the state realise even more that it needed to act strongly

0:34:520:34:56

and decisively. And so it did.

0:34:560:34:59

Within months, police rounded up the foot soldiers of the feuding clans.

0:35:020:35:06

Grazie. Grazie.

0:35:080:35:09

But a key boss remained at large,

0:35:090:35:11

the ruthless, violent man nicknamed, "The Mamma".

0:35:110:35:15

TRANSLATION: When listening to the phone tabs,

0:35:210:35:24

we heard reference to "The Mamma".

0:35:240:35:25

We knew it was their codename for Antonio Pelle.

0:35:250:35:28

That's what he was known as.

0:35:280:35:31

But the hunt for Antonio Pelle

0:35:320:35:34

was to demonstrate just what investigators were up against.

0:35:340:35:37

In Calabria, fugitive bosses usually hide within their own communities,

0:35:390:35:43

protected by a wall of silence.

0:35:430:35:45

It was more than a year before a heavily armed squad

0:35:480:35:51

swooped on a deserted warehouse

0:35:510:35:54

just outside Pelle's home town.

0:35:540:35:57

Nothing suggested there might be a bunker or anything like that,

0:36:010:36:05

Until we noticed something about part of the floor

0:36:050:36:08

that made us suspicious.

0:36:080:36:10

Suddenly we see this platform coming up from the floor.

0:36:170:36:21

And then we hear the fugitive's voice from below.

0:36:330:36:37

Antonio Pelle.

0:36:410:36:42

Below the hydraulic lift,

0:37:030:37:05

police found a fully furnished living space.

0:37:050:37:08

TRANSLATION: The bunker was perfectly organised, like a flat.

0:37:120:37:16

It was one of the most sophisticated ever found in Calabria.

0:37:190:37:22

He even had a greenhouse to grow cannabis.

0:37:270:37:31

So his hobby, too, was taken care of.

0:37:310:37:33

The capture of Antonio Pelle was a major coup.

0:37:390:37:43

But when, two years later,

0:37:430:37:45

he mysteriously managed to escape from custody,

0:37:450:37:48

it became clear just how fragile

0:37:480:37:50

any victory against the Ndrangheta can be.

0:37:500:37:53

Scouring the mountainsides for fugitive bosses is important.

0:38:020:38:06

But to really attack the Ndrangheta, investigators needed to penetrate

0:38:110:38:16

the deepest secrets of its structure.

0:38:160:38:18

In 2009, they made a historic breakthrough.

0:38:230:38:28

It came in a secluded valley...

0:38:280:38:29

..at Polsi,

0:38:320:38:34

home to one of the oldest shrines in Italy.

0:38:340:38:37

BELL TOLLS

0:38:370:38:40

The Madonna of Polsi.

0:38:480:38:50

An object of religious veneration for centuries, a whole host

0:38:500:38:53

of miracles have been attributed to this statue.

0:38:530:38:57

Every year, a smaller wooden copy gets carried around the sanctuary

0:38:570:39:01

here in procession, while women bellow ancient hymns

0:39:010:39:05

and the crowd shouts, "Viva, Maria".

0:39:050:39:07

This is one of the holiest places in Southern Italy, but it's also

0:39:090:39:12

a place with a very sinister history.

0:39:120:39:16

Thousands of believers come to this shrine every summer.

0:39:200:39:23

It was long suspected that Mafiosi used the pilgrimage as cover,

0:39:270:39:31

but for what?

0:39:310:39:33

Then, in 2009,

0:39:330:39:35

undercover agents spotted a very different kind of pilgrim.

0:39:350:39:40

It's just about here on 2nd of September, 2009,

0:39:420:39:47

that some of the top bosses in the Ndrangheta was standing

0:39:470:39:50

in a circle, as Ndrangheta tradition dictates,

0:39:500:39:54

having their secret meeting.

0:39:540:39:57

Little did they know that the Carabinieri were filming them.

0:39:570:40:00

The men spoke in a quasi-religious code.

0:40:020:40:05

TRANSLATION: The scene we witnessed in Polsi

0:40:220:40:25

harks back to ancient rituals and mysticism.

0:40:250:40:27

But really it has little to do with religion and more to do with crime.

0:40:270:40:33

Investigators had filmed a scene that surpassed Hollywood fiction.

0:40:360:40:40

The highest body of the Ndrangheta.

0:40:400:40:44

In full session.

0:40:440:40:47

This previously unknown ruling council had a name.

0:40:530:40:57

Il Crimine, "the crime".

0:40:570:40:59

TRANSLATION: The Ndrangheta was believed to be

0:41:070:41:09

a family-based organisation, with lots of families.

0:41:090:41:12

Some more, some less organised,

0:41:120:41:14

clashing with each other, making alliances...

0:41:140:41:18

Instead, a new structure emerged. Hierarchical and pyramid-like.

0:41:210:41:26

Similar to the Sicilian Mafia.

0:41:260:41:28

With a provincial executive deciding the criminal strategy.

0:41:280:41:32

Not only here in Reggio Calabria, but also in Italy,

0:41:320:41:35

Europe and around the world.

0:41:350:41:39

What months of investigation revealed

0:41:390:41:41

was a global Mafia federation,

0:41:410:41:44

with an annual turnover estimated at 44 billion euros.

0:41:440:41:49

If accurate, that figure would be the equivalent

0:41:490:41:52

of 3% of Italy's entire economic output.

0:41:520:41:57

The state offensive also revealed the extraordinary lengths

0:42:020:42:05

that Ndrangheta bosses will go to protect their power.

0:42:050:42:09

To evade capture and continue to operate,

0:42:090:42:13

they've built hundreds of bunkers.

0:42:130:42:15

Many are ingeniously concealed beneath water tanks.

0:42:200:42:25

Behind radiators.

0:42:250:42:28

Wine racks.

0:42:280:42:30

Or apparently solid walls.

0:42:310:42:34

The elite unit known as the Cacciatore,

0:42:340:42:37

or "hunters", were keen to show me one of their particular favourites.

0:42:370:42:42

And this has never cooked a single margarita in its life.

0:43:080:43:12

And that was one of the clues that told the Cacciatore

0:43:120:43:16

that there was something fishy about this particular oven.

0:43:160:43:20

A door inside the oven slides back on tracks,

0:43:290:43:34

revealing a 30-metre corridor dug deep

0:43:340:43:36

into the hillside behind the house.

0:43:360:43:39

Holy moley.

0:43:500:43:53

This was once a rather nice bedroom suite

0:43:530:43:57

complete with mirrors, stereo, TV,

0:43:570:44:03

bedroom furniture, heater...

0:44:030:44:06

This was clearly a perfectly decent living space once upon a time.

0:44:060:44:12

So we've come through the pizza oven down the tunnel,

0:44:150:44:20

through the bedroom, into the bathroom

0:44:200:44:24

and there's another secret entrance here leading, who knows where.

0:44:240:44:29

Here there are tunnels, leading to bunkers,

0:44:290:44:32

leading to more tunnels, leading to more bunkers.

0:44:320:44:36

There's a kind of madness at work here.

0:44:360:44:39

The Ndrangheta has also dug itself deep into Calabrian society.

0:44:570:45:02

And to do that, it draws on more than just violence and intimidation.

0:45:020:45:06

Bribery, corruption and political patronage

0:45:060:45:10

have won some key players over to the Ndrangheta's side.

0:45:100:45:14

TRANSLATION: Unfortunately the characteristic of the Ndrangheta

0:45:180:45:21

is that it's not only a criminal power,

0:45:210:45:23

it also penetrates all layers of social and professional life.

0:45:230:45:27

-TRANSLATION:

-It's the collusion with politics, institutions

0:45:300:45:33

and the business world, that's what strengthens the organisation.

0:45:330:45:37

TRANSLATION: Power to buy people, power to offer someone a job,

0:45:400:45:44

power to buy an official, a magistrate, a police officer.

0:45:440:45:48

This is what money does.

0:45:480:45:50

Calabria's institutions have been profoundly infiltrated.

0:45:530:45:56

In 2012, the city council of Reggio Calabria

0:45:560:46:00

was suspended by Italy's national government.

0:46:000:46:04

The reason? Links to organised crime.

0:46:040:46:08

The rise of the Pesce clan and its young boss, Ciccio,

0:46:080:46:11

is a typical tale of Mafia power.

0:46:110:46:14

TRANSLATION: Since we were kids, we've been taught

0:46:160:46:18

that every man has his price. Ciccio Pesce was like the mayor.

0:46:180:46:23

By 2010, investigators had amassed enough evidence

0:46:230:46:27

to put Ciccio Pesce on trial, and raided his hilltop mansion.

0:46:270:46:32

Here, too, they found a bunker.

0:46:350:46:38

But of the boss himself, hardly any trace.

0:46:380:46:42

It was evidence that the gangsters hold the real power in the region.

0:46:420:46:47

TRANSLATION: If we don't catch a fugitive

0:46:490:46:51

it is because the state has failed.

0:46:510:46:54

And people can't quite comprehend why some fugitives

0:46:540:46:57

can be on the run for so long.

0:46:570:46:59

Catching Ciccio Pesce became an absolute priority.

0:47:010:47:06

A special Carabinieri team began looking for a lead,

0:47:060:47:10

and for a bunker.

0:47:100:47:11

They concentrated on what they knew Ciccio Pesce could not live without.

0:47:110:47:17

TRANSLATION: Football and beautiful women,

0:47:190:47:21

it was difficult for him to bring a football pitch inside a bunker,

0:47:210:47:24

but a woman would definitely have been easier.

0:47:240:47:28

And so we concentrated on one woman in particular.

0:47:280:47:31

This girl was different from all the others,

0:47:370:47:40

because she had a lifestyle that didn't match her means.

0:47:400:47:43

So the boyfriend must have been rich, but we didn't see one.

0:47:490:47:53

She took too much care of herself to be a single woman.

0:47:530:47:56

We studied her habits, we began to follow her day and night.

0:47:560:48:00

For months, surveillance was trained

0:48:040:48:06

on Ciccio Pesce's suspected mistress.

0:48:060:48:09

Until one day, there was a breakthrough.

0:48:090:48:12

A car turned up outside the woman's house.

0:48:120:48:18

TRANSLATION: We recognised the driver,

0:48:180:48:20

he was the armourer of the Pesce clan,

0:48:200:48:22

a man in contact with Ciccio Pesce.

0:48:220:48:26

The investigators thought this man could be carrying messages

0:48:260:48:30

between Pesce and his mistress.

0:48:300:48:32

They tracked him to an isolated scrap yard,

0:48:340:48:37

a couple of miles outside Rosarno.

0:48:370:48:40

TRANSLATION: Surveillance was difficult in this area,

0:48:450:48:47

because there was no cover.

0:48:470:48:50

It was impossible to go right up there

0:48:500:48:52

and get a close look without being seen.

0:48:520:48:55

This was a big problem for us.

0:48:550:48:58

Faced with such difficulties on the ground,

0:48:590:49:02

those hunting the Ndrangheta bosses can now call on help from above.

0:49:020:49:08

These observation windows are absolutely amazing,

0:49:160:49:19

you can stick your head literally out of the fuselage of the aircraft

0:49:190:49:23

and look straight down.

0:49:230:49:26

The Italian Government has invested millions

0:49:260:49:28

in state-of-the-art spy planes like this one.

0:49:280:49:32

We're at something like 2,500 feet at the moment

0:50:250:50:28

and when they do these extraordinary zooms,

0:50:280:50:31

they tell me that even from several kilometres away,

0:50:310:50:35

they can identify the number plate on a car.

0:50:350:50:38

Investigators were trawling through all conceivable evidence

0:50:570:51:01

about the scrap yard, suspected of being Pesce's lair.

0:51:010:51:07

TRANSLATION: And so we began to get hold of satellite images

0:51:070:51:10

of the previous two year period.

0:51:100:51:13

We were looking to identify structural changes made to the area.

0:51:130:51:19

And then we got lucky.

0:51:210:51:25

The presence of a bulldozer, wooden boards to spread mortar,

0:51:250:51:29

heaps of cement mix, sand, the cement mixer...

0:51:290:51:33

The photo showed that six months earlier, builders had been at work,

0:51:330:51:38

but there was no evidence of any new buildings.

0:51:380:51:41

At least not ABOVE ground.

0:51:410:51:43

In fact, as the Carabinieri entered

0:52:240:52:26

and searched every inch of the compound,

0:52:260:52:29

secret cameras were trained on THEM.

0:52:290:52:32

The owner of the compound finally appeared

0:52:320:52:35

and reluctantly led Lumia and his men to a chicken coup.

0:52:350:52:39

A few moments later, the trapdoor opens.

0:52:460:52:49

TRANSLATION: He comes out and he's white, like a corpse.

0:52:530:52:56

He's lost 15 kilos.

0:52:560:52:59

But we had recognised his voice when he'd shouted from the tomb

0:52:590:53:02

in which he'd buried himself for months.

0:53:020:53:04

We'd got him.

0:53:050:53:08

The hunt for one of Italy's most dangerous men was over.

0:53:150:53:19

The bunker had been Pesce's command centre for months.

0:53:430:53:47

Through a dozen CCTV cameras, he watched his hunters closing in.

0:53:510:53:56

That gave him just enough time to destroy any incriminating evidence.

0:53:560:54:00

Pesce has begun a 20-year prison sentence.

0:54:270:54:30

Now the Italian state is putting 64 alleged members

0:54:300:54:34

of his clan on trial.

0:54:340:54:37

Ironically, they're being tried in a so called bunker courtroom,

0:54:370:54:41

bomb-proof and several metres underground.

0:54:410:54:45

This is one of the first major trials against the Ndrangheta

0:54:520:54:55

since its secret structure was revealed.

0:54:550:54:58

The state is trying to show that it can fight the Mafia and win.

0:54:580:55:03

The stakes are high and not only for Italy.

0:55:030:55:07

TRANSLATION: Ndrangheta clones its own criminal structure, multiplies it

0:55:090:55:13

and plants itself in new territories.

0:55:130:55:16

In Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Germany.

0:55:180:55:22

There is no bit of territory, no social category which is immune

0:55:250:55:31

from the possibility of contagion by the Ndrangheta, by the Mafia.

0:55:310:55:37

There isn't any.

0:55:370:55:39

But even the vast resources being poured into the fight

0:55:390:55:43

against the Ndrangheta can only begin to tackle the problem.

0:55:430:55:48

TRANSLATION: We can arrest 100, 200, 300

0:55:480:55:52

but there will always be offspring ready to take the reins of the clan.

0:55:520:55:56

Until Calabrian society stops shaking the hand of the Mafioso,

0:55:580:56:03

pretending not to know he is a Mafioso.

0:56:030:56:06

Until that happens, there's no chance of uprooting the weed.

0:56:060:56:11

-TRANSLATION:

-The battle in Calabria is still tough.

0:56:150:56:20

It's still difficult.

0:56:200:56:22

In Sicily, it took years of fighting to get results.

0:56:220:56:25

Public opinion, the people must be reassured the state is strong.

0:56:250:56:29

Credible and in charge.

0:56:290:56:32

In Calabria, the road is still long.

0:56:320:56:36

It's more than ten years since businessman Gaetano Saffioti

0:56:380:56:42

took his brave stand and defied the Ndrangheta.

0:56:420:56:46

He is still a pariah and a prisoner in his own community.

0:56:460:56:52

TRANSLATION: Here WE are in a kind of bunker.

0:56:520:56:56

It's the price you have to pay.

0:56:560:56:59

I pay this willingly for what I set out to achieve.

0:56:590:57:05

But only when there are many of us,

0:57:050:57:07

then I'll be able to call myself completely free.

0:57:070:57:10

Free to walk around like everyone else, to go for a ride on my bike.

0:57:100:57:15

To go to the beach, to watch the sea and swim.

0:57:150:57:19

All these things that normal people do, but I'm prevented from doing.

0:57:190:57:24

Sooner or later, it will happen.

0:57:240:57:27

We need more time, but it will happen.

0:57:270:57:31

I'm sure of it.

0:57:310:57:33

What I've seen in Calabria are scenes from a war,

0:57:520:57:57

a war that the rest of the world doesn't even know is going on.

0:57:570:58:01

The tragedy of this land is that it took so long

0:58:010:58:04

for the Italian state to begin a serious fight back.

0:58:040:58:08

But having seen what I've seen on this journey, I have a hope,

0:58:080:58:14

a belief, that the tide of history has finally begun to turn.

0:58:140:58:20

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0:58:300:58:34

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