Calabria and the United States: these are the two poles of an investigative operation carried out by the Italian authorities and the American FBI. The investigation has so far led to 18 arrest warrants in the Municipality of Rocca di Neto, in the Crotone area, against some members of the ‘Ndrangheta who allegedly had connections with the United States and who are accused of mafia-type criminal association.
On the Italian front, the operation is managed by the State Police, coordinated by the DDA (district anti-mafia directorate) of Catanzaro. The detention orders were issued by the deputy prosecutor of the Catanzaro DDA Paul Sirleowho directed the investigation in close coordination with the Public Prosecutor, Nicola Gratteri. They would concern a vast series of illegal activities: drug trafficking, illegal carrying of weapons and extortion, in which the Corigliano/Comito clan was the protagonist.
The complaints of Manhattan merchants
The mafia association that was defeated had a satellite group in New York – where several searches were carried out – made up of Italian-Americans who had long lived in the US metropolis. Precisely from Manhattan – the site of some episodes of extortion against traders, of which the FBI had become aware – the investigations started in 2020. The searches, ordered by the Catanzaro DDA, were carried out by FBI personnel ( Federal Bureau of Investigation). In Italy, two hundred agents belonging to the Central Operational Service of the State Police (SCO), the Mobile Squads of Crotone and Catanzaro and the Crime Prevention Departments are participating in the operation.
Bribes hidden among the croissants
The crimes, especially extortion, were committed through a well-oiled mechanism, disguised by normal commercial practices and by the use of a strategic vocabulary imposed on the victims to signal their willingness to pay the bribe, ordering, for example, at the beginning of the month, croissants at the bar run by the Corigliano family. On one of these occasions, immediately after the delivery of the croissants, the judicial police had checked the car in which the suspects were travelling, documenting the possession of 2,000 euros in cash. The proceeds of the extortions were used to feed a common fund managed by the head of the family, also in the logic of the division of the illicit proceeds to be divided on the basis of precise agreements and on the basis of the criminal thickness of the recipients.