The Good Mothers
Page 29
II
1. Interview with the author, Pagliarelle, May 2016.
2. Estimates of the ’Ndrangheta’s earnings vary wildly. Partly this is because the ’Ndrangheta is such a secretive organisation, partly because it is laterally structured, giving no one boss much knowledge of the ’Ndrangheta’s finances beyond his own ’ndrina. Some variation is also accounted for by Italian researchers’ habit of focusing only on revenues from inside Italy. Finally, some of the more spectacular figures seem to be explained by researchers, journalists and prosecutors wishing to draw attention to the group.
Transcrime, a respected criminal research unit run by Professor Ernesto Savone, who I interviewed at his offices at the Catholic University in Milan, estimates the ’Ndrangheta’s annual earnings at $3.49 billion. In a paper published in Global Crime in 2014 (‘Mythical numbers and the proceeds of organized crime: Estimating the mafia proceeds in Italy’), Transcrime also estimated ’Ndrangheta annual earnings to be in the range of $2.5 billion to $4 billion.
Most other estimates of the ’Ndrangheta’s earnings are far higher, in the $40–$80 billion range. In December 2008, for instance, the US Consul General to Naples, Patrick Truhn, returned from a fact-finding tour to Calabria to file a report which began with the arresting opening statement: ‘If it were not part of Italy, Calabria would be a failed state. The ’Ndrangheta organized crime syndicate controls vast portions of its territory and economy and accounts for at least three percent of Italy’s GDP (probably much more) through drug trafficking, extortion and usury’ (Wikileaks released the cable: www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08NAPLES96_a.html).
The figure of $100 billion comes from anti-mafia prosecutor Giuseppe Lombardo, who is based in Reggio Calabria and has studied the ’Ndrangheta’s money, domestic and international, for a decade. Lombardo is not an individual given to exaggeration and there are few people in the world who know about the ’Ndrangheta’s money. It is his figure that I have used here as an upper limit.
Why the variation in figures? And why use Lombardo’s figure, which is one of the highest? Savone was keen to puncture what he considered to be the wilder estimates of mafia wealth, a laudable aim in an area prone to hyperbole. Still, anecdotal evidence such as the value of the European cocaine trade (4.5–7 billion euros a year at wholesale prices, or 22 billion euros a year at street prices), the embezzlement and defrauding of billons of euros in European Union funds and the uncovering of mafia money-laundering networks processing tens of billions of euros a year suggests Transcrime’s figures are low. Possibly this is because, in its admirable effort to nail the facts, Transcrime focused only on documented domestic seizures and Italian police evidence of criminal revenues, plus academic and media reports. In other words, it concentrated only on the known and local and took no account of the unknown or foreign. It’s worth noting that in a separate 2013 study, Transcrime itself estimated that 80 per cent of the ’Ndrangheta’s money is earned overseas. Lombardo, on the other hand, took a global view and has information on the ’Ndrangheta not available to academic researchers. His figures also accord much more closely with other international estimates of the value of global organised crime.
3. Milka Kahn and Anne Véron, Women of Honour (London: Hurst, 2017), p. 77.
4. Although Italian law recognised the imperative of defending honour until 1981, allowing the defence of reputation as mitigation for murder. See Pierfilippo Saviotti, ‘Le donne contro la ’ndrangheta, Pavia incontra il procuratore Cerreti’, Stampo Antimafioso, 16 November 2013: www.stampoantimafioso.it/2013/11/16/pavia-procuratore-cerreti/#sthash.zns0zKkt.dpuf
5. Michele Inserra, ‘Quaderni del Sud, Locri la giornata della memoria Al cimitero di Rosarno per le donne “sparite”’, Il Quotidiano del Sud, 17 March 2017: www.quotidianodelsud.it/calabria/societa-cultura/2017/03/17/quaderni-sud-locri-giornata-memoria-cimitero-rosarno-donne
6. Netflix, Amanda Knox, 2016: www.netflix.com/title/80081155
III
1. This section is based primarily on several interviews with Alessandra Cerreti conducted between July 2015 and May 2016, as well as supplementary research.
2. Profile: Bernardo Provenzano, BBC, 11 April 2006: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4899512.stm
3. La Repubblica, ‘Imprenditore arrestato per frode all’erario E’ accusato di aver sottratto un miliardo’, 9 February 2007: www.repubblica.it/2007/02/sezioni/cronaca/arresto-cetti-serbelloni/arresto-cetti-serbelloni/arresto-cetti-serbelloni.html; La Repubblica, ‘Islam, nell’aula del tribunale è polemica fra giudice e imputato sul copricapo’, 26 February 2009: www.milano.repubblica.it/dettaglio/islam-nellaula-del-tribunale-e-polemica-fra-giudice-e-imputato-sul-copricapo/1596678
4. Emanuela Zuccalà, ‘La ’ndrangheta esiste, che fatica dimostrarlo ogni volta’, Io Donna, 9 October 2012: www.iodonna.it/personaggi/interviste/2012/alessandra-cerreti-pubblico-ministero-mafia-calabria-40999238466.shtml
IV
1. This chapter is based on official transcriptions of Denise Cosco’s testimony and of her interviews with the carabinieri on 25 November 2009 and 5 March 2010, as well as supplementary interviews with Denise’s lawyer Vincenza Rando, Lea’s lawyer Annalisa Pisano, and prosecutors Alessandra Cerreti, Giuseppe Creazzo and Sandro Dolce.
V
1. John Dickie, professor of Italian Studies at University College, London, is a rare example of an outsider in a field – mafia history – dominated by Italians. His studies of mafiosi, Cosa Nostra, Mafia Brotherhoods and Mafia Republic, draw on earlier work by Italian scholars but also Dickie’s original research. Alessandra read works by many mafia scholars, most of them Italian. But it was Dickie’s research that revealed to her the ’Ndrangheta’s early attachment to prostitution. It is a measure of Dickie’s stature that Alessandra later struck up a correspondence with him. In this passage, I quote from Dickie’s work as well as from a supplementary interview in London in June 2016.
2. John Dickie, Mafia Brotherhoods (London: Sceptre, 2011), pp. 171–4.
3. See for example the founding myths of the Chinese triads, the Japanese yakuza or the South African prison gangs, the 26s, 27s and 28s.
4. León Arsenal and Hipólito Sanchiz, Una Historia de las Sociedades Secretas Españolas (Planeta, 2006), pp. 326–35.
5. Dickie, Mafia Brotherhoods, p. 5.
6. Antonio Zagari, Ammazzare Stanca (Periferia, 1992, reprinted by Aliberti 2008).
7. Interview with the author, Rome, May 2016.
VI
1. This section is largely sourced from repeated interviews with Alessandra Cerreti, Giovanni Musarò and Michele Prestipino between July 2015 and November 2016.
2. Rachel Donadio, ‘Corruption Is Seen as a Drain on Italy’s South’, New York Times, 7 October 2012: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/world/europe/in-italy-calabria-is-drained-by-corruption.html
3. Antonino de Masi interviewed by the author at his offices in Gioia Tauro, June 2016.
4. Alex Perry, ‘Cocaine Highway’, Newsweek Insights, 17 November 2014: www.amazon.co.uk/Cocaine-Highway-lines-habit-terror-ebook/dp/B00PSI1M42/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481295939&sr=8-1&keywords=cocaine+highway
5. Steve Sherer, ‘A Very Special Flower Arrangement’, Reuters, 11 April 2016: www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/italy-mafia-flowers/
6. The best description of the ’Ndrangheta’s structure and the evidence gathered for it can be found in the judicial documents supporting the case that eventually resulted from these inquiries, codenamed Operazione Crimine. Copies can be found at the following web addresses: www.casadellalegalita.info/doc/sentenza-GUP-CRIMINE.pdf (939 pages) and www.casadellalegalita.info/doc/Decreto-Fermo-CRIMINE.pdf (2,681 pages). These documents also document the election of Domenico Oppedisano and give further detail on the carabinieri’s surveillance methods.
7. For an account of the summit, see this interview with the centre’s manager Paderno Dugnano: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGsOuUHH0WA
8. Stephan Faris, ‘Italy Braces for a New Mafia War�
��, TIME, 14 October 2010: content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2025423,00.html; AKI, ‘Italy: Police uncover mafia drug ring in Milan convent’, 12 May 2010 (a reprint of the story, containing details of the government crackdown, can be found on a chat thread of the Gangsters Inc. blog at: z14.invisionfree.com/GangstersInc/index.php?showtopic=1605&st=720); Nick Squires, ‘Italy claims finally defeating the mafia’, Daily Telegraph, 9 January 2010: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6957240/Italy-claims-finally-defeating-the-mafia.html
VII
1. Much has been written about Lea Garofalo’s death. In this account, I have stuck to the official transcriptions of her testimony in 1996, July 2002 and April 2008; Denise Cosco’s statements on 25 November 2009 and 5 March 2010, and her testimony in court on 20 September and 13 October 2011; and judicial documents from the murder trial that followed. I also conducted supplementary interviews with Vincenza Rando, Alessandra Cerreti, Marisa Garofalo and Sandro Dolce in 2015 and 2016.
2. Kahn and Véron, Women of Honour, p. 107.
VIII
1. The source material for most of this chapter is the same as for Chapter 7.
2. I have supplemented quotes from my own interview with Enza Rando with some from this court report: Emanuela Zuccalà, ‘L’ultimo sms di Lea Garofalo: torno a Milano per ricominciare’, Corriere della Sera, 14 November 2012: www.27esimaora.corriere.it/articolo/lultimo-sms-di-lea-garofalo-allavvocatotorno-a-milano-mi-rifaro-una-vita/
IX
1. La Repubblica, ‘Reggio Calabria, bomba al tribunale alto potenziale, danni, nessun ferito’, 3 January 2010: www.repubblica.it/2010/01/sezioni/cronaca/reggio-bomba/reggio-bomba/reggio-bomba.html; Nick Pisa, ‘The moped Mafia: CCTV catches bomb delivery by Italian mobster on scooter driven by his moll’, Daily Mail, 8 January 2010: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1241682/The-moped-Mafia-CCTV-catches-bomb-delivery-Italian-mobster-scooter-driven-moll.html. Though the driver was initially reported as being a woman, Prestipino said later investigations identified a man.
2. ‘Rosarno, polizia: ’Ndrangheta dietro a scontri. Via 1.100 immigrati’, Reuters, 11 January 2010: it.reuters.com/article/topNews/idITMIE60A0AB20100111?sp=true
3. Reports of the discovery of the car can be found on this Gangsters Inc. chat thread: www.z14.invisionfree.com/GangstersInc/index.php?showtopic=1605&st=720
4. The passages on the early life and friendship in Rosarno of Maria Concetta Cacciola and Giuseppina Pesce are based on official court documents, dated 13 July 2013, released by the Italian prosecutor, Giuseppe Creazzo, who oversaw the case relating to Cacciola’s death, as well as transcripts of Giuseppina’s testimony to those proceedings, dated 7 February 2013. Supplementary material is available in official documents relating to the subsequent trial of lawyers representing the Cacciola family, dated 30 July 2014, and a custody hearing for Concetta’s father, Michele Cacciola, dated 4 February 2012.
X
1. This chapter is based on official transcriptions of Denise Cosco’s statements on 25 November 2009 and 5 March 2010, and of her testimony in court on 20 September and 13 October 2011; on judicial documents from the murder trial that followed; and on statements made to police and in court by Carmine Venturino in 2012 and 2013.
XI
1. ‘Operazione “All Inside”, colpo al clan Pesce di Rosarno’, CN24TV: www.cn24tv.it/news/30318/operazione-all-inside-colpo-al-clan-pesce-di-rosarno-30-arresti.html
2. Caterina Scaffidi Domianello, ‘Donne contro la ’ndrangheta’, Narcomafie, July/August 2013: www.liberanet.org/narcomafie/2013_07.pdf
3. Julian Gavaghan, ‘Italian mob boss arrested after 17 years on the run is cheered by crowd as police lead him to jail’, Daily Mail, 27 April 2010: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1269304/Italian-mobster-arrested-17-years-run-cheered-crowd-police-lead-jail.html
4. Tom Kington, ‘Italian police arrest 300 in raids on Calabrian mafia’, Guardian, 13 July 2010: www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/13/calabria-mafia-arrests-italy; Stephan Faris, ‘Italy vs. the mafia: Beheading the ’Ndrangheta’, TIME, 13 July 2010: content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2003598,00.html
5. Interview with the author, July 2015, Milan.
6. Interview with the author, July 2015, Modena.
7. Interview with the author, July 2015, Milan.
8. Ibid.
XII
1. Stephan Faris, ‘Italy Braces for a New Mafia War’, TIME, 14 October 2010: content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2025423,00.html
2. Author interview with Alessandra Cerreti, May 2016, Milan.
3. Clare Longrigg, ‘Women Breaking the Mafia’s Rules’, Mafiology, 14 October 2013: mafiologytest.wordpress.com/tag/alessandra-cerreti/
4. Ibid.
5. Cerreti spoke about her conversation with Giuseppina in several fora, such as in Rome in March 2014: Experts commend mafia-linked woman’s help in crime fight, Xinhua, 15 March 2014: china.org.cn/world/Off_the_Wire/2014-03/15/content_31793448.htm. She also gave several accounts during more than seven hours of author interviews with Cerreti in July 2015, and February and May 2016. This quotation is a compilation of Cerreti’s public remarks and her quotations in interview.
6. Clare Longrigg, ‘Women Breaking the Mafia’s Rules’, Mafiology, 14 October 2013: mafiologytest.wordpress.com/tag/alessandra-cerreti/
7. Interview with the author, July 2015, Milan.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Interview with the author, February 2015, Rome.
11. Interview with the author, July 2015, Milan.
12. Interview with the author, July 2015, Rome.
13. Giuseppina Pesce’s statement to prosecutors, sourced from official transcripts of her testimony included in several subsequent trial documents.
XIII
1. This chapter is based on numerous trial documents relating to the Lea Garofalo case. In the earlier stages of the investigation, the carabinieri made some false allegations and were mistaken over some factual details which were corrected as their inquiries proceeded at later stages of the investigation and the trial.
2. Interview with Enza Rando, Modena, July 2015. See also Michele Brambilla, ‘The Tragedy and Courage of a Mobster’s Daughter’, La Stampa in English, 17 April 2014: www.lastampa.it/2014/04/17/esteri/lastampa-in-english/the-tragedy-and-courage-of-a-mobsters-daughter-lrpU6aQB445if2MPCiJM9I/pagina.html
XIV
1. This section is based on trial documents relating to Operation All Inside, the prosecution of the Pesce clan, and statements made by Giuseppina Pesce both to Alessandra Cerreti and during the subsequent trial.
2. Clare Longrigg, ‘Women Breaking the Mafia’s Rules’, Mafiology, 14 October 2013: mafiologytest.wordpress.com/tag/alessandra-cerreti/
3. Calabria Ora’s website has since closed. I am grateful to the veteran journalist Franco Abruzzo, whose website is an invaluable archive on a diverse range of matters, including the Calabria Ora controversy: www.francoabruzzo.it/public/docs/palmi-articolicommenti-9fb13.rtf
XV
1. This chapter is based on official records of statements made by Maria Concetta Cacciola to Alessandra Cerreti and Giovanni Musarò on 25 May and 28 June 2011; trial documents relating to the prosecution of Michele Cacciola, Giuseppe Cacciola, Anna Lazzaro, Gregorio Cacciola and Vittorio Pisani; and supplementary interviews with Giuseppe Creazzo, Giovanni Musarò and Alessandra Cerreti. I’m also grateful to Laura Aprati and Enrico Fierro for a transcript of their one-woman play about Concetta, O cu nui o cu iddi, which is also closely based on the official evidence.
2. Caterina Scaffidi Domianello, ‘Donne contro la ’ndrangheta’, Narcomafie, July/August 2013: www.liberanet.org/narcomafie/2013_07.pdf
3. Interview with the author, May 2016, Milan.
4. Interview with the author, May 2016, Rome.
5. Clare Longrigg, ‘Mafia witness “forced to drink acid”’, Mafiology, 2 February 2014: mafiologytest.wordpress.com/tag/alessandra-cerreti/
6. Interview with the au
thor, May 2016, Rome.
XVI
1. This section is based on the author’s interview with Alessandra Cerreti in May 2016 in Milan.
2. Interview with the author, May 2016, Milan.
3. Caterina Scaffidi Domianello, ‘Donne contro la ’ndrangheta’, Narcomafie, July/August 2013: www.liberanet.org/narcomafie/2013_07.pdf
4. Various reports of the correspondence between Giuseppina Pesce and her family can be found online. The most complete is Caterina Scaffidi Domianello’s account in ‘Donne contro la ’ndrangheta’, Narcomafie, July/August 2013: www.liberanet.org/narcomafie/2013_07.pdf. Others that proved useful include two reports on strill.it: www.strill.it/citta/2011/10/la-famiglia-scrive-a-giuseppina-pesce-le-lettere-ricevute-in-carcere/; and www.strill.it/citta/2011/09/le-lettere-di-giuseppina-pesce-collaboro-per-dare-un-futuro-ai-miei-figli/. Excerpts were also included in the judicial documents accompanying the trials that followed Operations All Inside and All Clean. Finally, Alessandra Cerreti read some of the letters to the author in interview and at other times summarised their contents.
XVII
1. This chapter is based on evidence and transcripts presented in official judicial documents relating to the trial of Michele Cacciola, Anna Lazzaro and Giuseppe Cacciola, and the subsequent trial of the two lawyers, Vittorio Pisani and Gregorio Cacciola. This material is supplemented by the author’s interviews with Alessandra Cerreti, Giovanni Musarò and Giuseppe Creazzo, as well as reference to the play O cu nui o cu iddi by Laura Aprati and Enrico Fierro.
2. Dario Crippa, ‘Sciolse la mamma nell’acido, nessuna pietà per mio padre’, Il Giorno, 4 July 2011: www.ilgiorno.it/milano/cronaca/2011/07/04/537205-sciolse_mamma.shtml