“Mafia is a process, not a thing” — Joe Bonanno, Italian-American crime boss
In the early hours of 15 August 2007, six young Italian men got into their cars after celebrating an 18th birthday at Da Bruno, a pizza restaurant in the city of Duisburg in western Germany.
Out of the dark, masked gunmen sprayed their vehicles with 70 bullets, then shot each victim in the head, including the youngest, Fracensco Giorgi, aged 16. In the pocket of the dead birthday boy, Tommaso Venturi, police found a half-burnt image of Saint Michael.
Italian investigators brought in by the German authorities knew what the scorched picture indicated. An image of the saint is partially burnt during initiation rituals into the ‘Ndrangheta, a powerful, 10,000 strong, mafia network founded in the southwest Italian region of Calabria 160 years ago. During this gangster baptism, which marks a rebirth and a lifelong pledge of loyalty, initiates are told:
“Before the family, parents, sisters, brothers, comes the interest and honour of the society.
From now on, the society will be your family.”
The shooting, it transpired, was the result of a simmering 16-year feud between two powerful clans from San Luca, a hilltop commune in Calabria and birthplace of the ‘Ndrangheta. What perplexed the public and the authorities was why this ultra-violent gangland scene had played out, of all places, in Germany.
Amid the public outrage and a flurry of police anti-mafia activity, what the authorities failed to realise was the extent to which the ‘Ndrangheta had been able to embed itself in the country. Germany wasn’t just a place of refuge for mafia misfits — it was a hub of activity, and Duisburg was a bloody red flag.
Today, almost two decades after the Duisburg shooting, the ‘Ndrangheta has grown to become one of the largest criminal conglomerates on the planet, with a presence in more than 80 countries across Europe, North America, West Africa and Australia. Described by Interpol as “one of the most extensive and powerful criminal organisations in the world,” the ‘Ndrangheta are involved in a range of criminal activities, including drug trafficking, money laundering, extortion and corruption. But it is Germany which hosts the world’s largest outpost of the Calabrian mob, after their homeland in Italy.
But it’s the way the mafia has done this that is such a pisstake. The ‘Ndrangheta’s expansion into Germany has largely come on the back of a large portion of parmesan cheese and charm. A network of mafia-run Italian restaurants, from pizzerias and trattorias to gelato shops and cafés, has become the backbone not just for labour rackets and extortion, but in helping to flood Europe with cocaine, even as mobsters use the profits to infiltrate society and establish power in the business world.
How this has been allowed to happen in one of the world’s most stable and efficient democracies is the subject of a book by Zora Hauser, a criminologist specialising in the mafia from the University of Cambridge. Hauser says this mafia creep has been “made easy” by the German authorities, whose failure to root out the Calabrian mafia in their midst has created a ticking time bomb for law, order, and even democracy, in Germany.
But why did the authorities fail so blatantly to understand what was happening? Why has the presence of the mafia in the country been overlooked and downplayed for such a long time? These are questions worth asking, because Germany is not alone in facing the rising threat of gangland infiltration. Across Europe’s biggest democracies, after all, organised crime groups are slowly gathering power.
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When the first Italian guest workers started arriving in Germany in the Fifties, like many immigrants they were initially distrusted. By the Seventies and Eighties, though, this animosity had dwindled, with an influx of Turks a new diversion. Meanwhile, Germans discovered Italy as a holiday destination with tasty food and good weather, and the number of Italian restaurants and gelato stores in Germany boomed. The Italians went, says Hauser, “from being ‘knifers’ and ‘mafiosi’ to representing good and well-integrated foreigners”.
But as more Italians moved to join family and seek careers in Germany, along came members of the Italian mafia, most notably the Calabrians, who built up businesses and became involved in street drug dealing, theft and extortion. The ‘Ndrangheta’s franchise-like structure — whereby clans set up outposts abroad after gaining approval from a central committee of senior mafiosi in Calabria — made it easy for its mafiosi to venture out of their homeland. Crucially, by the Nineties, compared with the more notorious Cosa Nostra from Sicily and the Camorra from Naples, the Calabrian mafia was far better placed to quickly and efficiently expand their criminal networks abroad. At this time, both in Sicily and the US, the Cosa Nostra was busy fighting an all-out war with the Italian state and the FBI, from which it would not recover; the Camorra was too chaotic and feud-prone to expand so prolifically.
As luck would have it, the ‘Ndrangheta’s expansion abroad dovetailed with the rise of the international cocaine trade.
In 2017, after the end of Colombia’s civil war, South American cocaine traffickers decided they needed a fresh market for their product. Mexican cartels had monopolised and saturated the US market, so they turned their full attention to pumping the drug into Europe, where organised crime groups were only too pleased to help out. In a typically bold move, one of the first things the ‘Ndrangheta did to boost imports of the drug from South America was to help build a new port, at Gioia Tauro in Calabria. Plus, their growing presence in countries in northern Europe, near the continent’s busiest shipping ports in Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg, left them perfectly placed to take advantage when the steady stream of cocaine coming across the Atlantic turned into a deluge.
Since then, Europe has overtaken the US as the world’s largest cocaine market, boosting the coffers — and the power — of crime networks including the ‘Ndrangheta, Albanians, Serbs, Moroccan-Dutch, and Irish. Milking the profits from smuggling a drug that costs $2,000 a kilo in Colombia and at least $40,000 a kilo as soon as it lands in Europe, these gangs deal in multiple tonnes of the stuff. Annual seizures of the drug at Europe’s borders grew from 60 tonnes in 2014 to 320 tonnes in 2022. The profits are mind-boggling.
Europe’s cocaine blizzard has created a rise in addiction, gangland violence and corruption. In Germany, where estimates put the number of ‘Ndrangheta clan members at between 1,000 and 3,000, the country’s excellent strategic position has enabled the mafia to turn it into a logistical drug smuggling hub, using the profits to infiltrate the country by stealth, infecting it from the inside out.
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Diners at the Leonardo Da Vinci restaurant in Wesseling, a small city outside Cologne, could never have known, but behind its unassuming facade of red awnings, pot plants and and terrace dining, lurked a money laundering and cocaine smuggling hub run by the ‘Ndrangheta. As customers ate their carbonaras, cocaine-loaded cars were being driven into Da Vinci’s car park, stored upstairs before an onward travel to Milan.
These mob-run Italian restaurants, gelato stores and cafés have always been a crucial part of the ‘Ndrangheta’s strategy in Europe. And it is in Germany where this tactic looms largest. This is not the odd restaurant. In some parts of Germany, it’s tricky to buy a pizza without accidentally helping to fund the next shipment of cocaine. A clan based in Erfurt, a city in the central state of Thuringia, has established a near-monopoly of the city’s Italian eateries. Police linked the mafia there to 23 Italian restaurants, cafés, and gelato stores — in a city the size of Luton.
“In some parts of Germany it’s tricky to buy a pizza without accidentally helping to fund the next shipment of cocaine.”
Behind the pizza ovens and spaghetti bolognese in scores of eateries in Germany, the charm of Italian hospitality is being cynically used by the mafia as a cover to launder money, smuggle cocaine, engage in racketeering and get close to those in power.
“It’s hard to believe the mafia infiltrates democratic life through the corner pizzeria — but that’s exactly the point: hiding in plain sight,” Hauser tells UnHerd. “The goal is full integration. Winning over the community, reaching into politics.”
Often, it’s presumed that businesses run by criminal gangs are shells with few customers. But in Germany, they can be the most popular joints in town. A restaurant in the central state of Hesse, whose owner had been involved in drug trafficking, extortion and murder, was the centre of public life. It hosted evenings run by the local newspaper, small concerts and events for the elderly. Luigi, the long-standing clan boss behind the restaurant, applied jointly with the local mayor for EU subsidies to restore an old building in the town centre.
The underworld seamlessly mixes with the upperworld. “While the [criminal] business still relies on intimidation, coercion, or, more generally, the constant flow of illicit gains,” says Hauser, “to the outside, it presents a friendly façade, exemplified by good food for honest prices, a warm welcome, and a taste of the Italian ‘dolce vita’ that so fascinates German society.”
Behind the smiles, though, comes the threat. Hauser spoke to a German businessman who ditched plans to open an ice cream shop in his local town after a ‘Ndrangheta messenger told him there was no space for two gelato stores in the neighbourhood, adding that they knew where his children went to school.
When Hauser travelled to neighbourhoods infiltrated by the mafia, and talked to locals about the gangsters arrested in their midst, many thought that she and the police must be mistaken. The mafia had gained so much trust that neighbours and customers refused to believe what they read in the news. Why? Because they had a romantic, nostalgic, movie-inspired view of the mafia. A neighbour of one clan boss, who ran a local pizzeria and was arrested by police special forces, told Hauser that if he really had anything to do with the mafia, then why had the police not intervened earlier?
Perhaps because the local authorities had also been sucked in.
‘Ndrangheta mobsters in Germany have been quick to befriend people in positions of power. Politicians and civil servants are deliberately wooed to increase gangster’s social capital, their influence and to help — wittingly or not — shield them from the law. Right from the start, people in positions of authority have had their heads turned by some of these relationships. When police in the late Nineties intercepted the phone of a ‘Ndrangheta member, who owned a restaurant in Stuttgart, they were surprised to find that he was in direct contact with a man he called “my minister”. This turned out to be Günther Oettinger, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union in Baden-Württemberg. Instead of investigating further, the authorities warned Oettinger about the phone surveillance. A public inquiry into the scandal found the politician had not committed any crime, but concluded he might have been “unwillingly and unknowingly used by organised criminals” to further their business.
A former mayor of Erfurt told Hauser that though he had heard that Luca, a local restaurant owner, had links with the Duisburg massacre and was a member of the mafia, they became friends. He held his re-election party in Luca’s restaurant. “We decided to do Bella Italia,” he told Hauser. “Italian music, federal ministers came and spoke, I was there. We did this as our election rally celebration, and they could profit as well, there were so many people, they were queuing!”
When a special commando unit entered one of the Erfurt clan’s restaurants as part of a murder-related investigation, the police bumped into their direct superior, the State Minister for Home Affairs, having a meeting over pizza with the Governor of Thuringia. The search was halted. An investigation by journalists found there was no mention of the incident in official records.
In another restaurant round the corner, phone surveillance caught a district judge telling a mafioso restaurant owner suspected of drug trafficking that his restaurant was under surveillance — before giving him the name of a good lawyer. “This is what differentiates mafias from other criminal networks and explains their unique resilience over centuries,” Hauser tells UnHerd. “It is hard to overstate the importance of the link between the mafia and people in power, because it ultimately guarantees them protection.”
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It’s a mistake to measure the threat of gangsterism just by the amount of blood spilled. While the Calabrian mafia used to operate with a gun behind its back, after the heat from Duisburg the clan in Germany decided to keep their pistols in their pockets.
When in 2013 a ‘Ndrangheta boss heard that two of his men had got into an argument and pulled out their guns in Melsungen, a spa town in central Germany, he was furious. A police phone intercept recorded his reaction: ‘What is this circus? Getting out a weapon on the street?!.. I am telling you now and I will not tell you again! Melsungen must be like a church!’
A deliberate policy to put profits before murder, to make it easier to blend in with the legitimate world, was adopted. Avoiding the kind of brazen violence that has necessitated state crackdowns on organised crime networks across Europe, has been crucial to the Calabrians’ expansion abroad and their success in the cocaine trade.
“It’s a mistake to measure the threat of gangsterism just by the amount of blood spilled.”
Nicola Gratteri, a mafia prosecutor, said in 2023 that the ‘Ndrangheta in Germany is now “more interested in cash than blood… the mafia is here to buy cocaine and reinvest the money to buy hotels, restaurants, and pizzerias.”
This is far from saying Europe’s major cocaine traffickers have become impotent. Quite the contrary. According to Europol’s latest organised crime threat assessment, published in May this year, drug trafficking “has a high potential to destabilise EU society, given its association with… corruption, and infiltration in the legal economy.” The report found that 80% of organised crime networks in Europe also ran companies in the legal economy.
Slowly, then, organised crime is infecting Germany’s institutions and economy. Police officers and officials are increasingly being investigated for corruption and having links to organised crime. In an ongoing trial which started in May this year, a court has heard how the chief public prosecutor involved in one of Europe’s biggest ever cocaine seizures at Hamburg’s port is alleged to have been on the payroll of the same network of traffickers he was supposed to be investigating.
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Why have the German authorities been so blindsided by the Italian mafia — who, after all, have something of a reputation?
For a long time, Germany’s authorities seemed to consider gangsterism to be something that affects poorer, less stable nations around the world, like Albania or Colombia. The ‘Ndrangheta was allowed to operate “virtually undisturbed,” says Hauser, owing to a mix of incompetence and complacency. She suggests this lack of know-how has resulted in weak organised crime laws; an anti-money laundering framework so bad it has failed to reach EU standards; and a perversely high bar for prosecutors to prove a suspect is a member of a criminal organisation.
“The rise of the ‘Ndrangheta is symptomatic of how vulnerable Germany is to organised crime more generally,” Hauser explains. “Calabrian mafiosi are by no means the only crime groups active in Germany, nor is this presence a new phenomenon. The notable aspect is how long it is taking for Germany to wake up to reality.”
Law enforcement across Europe has been stepping up operations against the ‘Ndrangheta. In 2023, for instance, Operation Eureka revealed how clans in Germany teamed up with Albanian and Latin America crime groups to smuggle 25 tonnes of cocaine in under three years. But German authorities themselves have so far failed to convict any ‘Ndrangheta members in Thuringia, a state in which the ‘Ndrangheta has thrived.
In fact, they have been suspiciously bad at this.
During Operation FIDO in the 2000s, the German federal police successfully planted an undercover detective within the Erfurt mafia organisation to target eight key clan members. But in 2002 the investigation was suddenly halted without arrests or explanation — a decision that is now the subject of an inquiry by the state parliament.
Then, in 2019, at a secret meeting in Rome, Italian mafia investigators gave Thuringian state police a list of 70 suspected members and associates of the Erfurt organisation, including a list of restaurants and companies they were linked to. Yet bizarrely, no further action was taken. “German authorities… have never acted upon the evidence that they have collected over the years, to the point that a parliamentary inquiry is now investigating a possible case of negligence,” writes Hauser.
This nefarious mix of collusion and negligence fuels mafias the world over. If the money is flowing and the authorities are doing nothing, it’s in no one’s interest to kick up a fuss. And the more mafias integrate, the less suspicious they appear.
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Organised crime conglomerates such as the ‘Ndrangheta loom large over the future. At a time when the drug trade continues unabated, and nations are becoming less collaborative and institutions are haemorrhaging trust, crime groups are stepping in to further expand their networks and use the cover of legitimacy to gain more power. How powerful they actually are is a mystery, because the less you look the less you find.
When police from Europe, the US and Australia accessed hundreds of thousands of messages sent between 2019 and 2022 – sent on encrypted mobile phone systems used by gangsters to arrange everything from cocaine deals to executions – what surprised them most was how much they had underestimated the capabilities of organised crime.
Amid a sea of mundane gangster chat, a treasure trove of intelligence revealed that the scale of the cocaine business, from the UK and the Netherlands to Switzerland and Sweden, was far bigger than they had estimated. But, crucially, the hacks revealed how international crime networks were far more interconnected and collaborative than law enforcement officials had ever imagined. In Europe’s biggest democracies, in countries seen as being “too civilised” for organised crime to become a big threat, gangs are laundering billions in cash, corrupting senior officials, becoming major youth employers, and are shooting witnesses during trials.
In Spain, the country’s chief economic crimes investigator was arrested after he was linked to a secret stash of €20 million and a gang that smuggled 13 tons of cocaine into the country. In Antwerp, there is so much cocaine being seized the authorities cannot incinerate it fast enough, so it’s being stolen back by the traffickers. Across the border in the Netherlands, which some of its police have called a “narco-state”, the impact of organised crime is being highlighted by frequent incidents of violence, including the execution of a journalist and a lawyer during a gang trial.
In France, a report last year by senators warned the country was becoming “submerged” by drug trafficking and the corollary of exacerbated violence. In Switzerland, drug money is having a growing influence on the legitimate economy, from money laundering to protecting mafias such as the ‘Ndrangheta. In Sweden, where wars over cocaine profits have sparked record gun murders and bombings, crime networks have resorted to recruiting and radicalising hundreds of teenagers to carry out a spate of gangland killings.
Closer to home, meanwhile, the UK has become a continental hub for Europe’s cocaine industry and a target for investment by the ‘Ndrangheta and other crime groups. Cocaine money has empowered a new generation of British gangsters, enabling them to disguise themselves as entrepreneurs. Amid this blizzard of profit, every hour inner-city children are being recruited to swap school lessons for a career selling crack and heroin in trap houses in rural and seaside towns and cities across the country. Meanwhile, an endless series of Albanian gang-run cannabis farms staffed by slave labour in suburban homes and abandoned churches, police stations and banks pump out cheap cannabis so the profits can be used to import cocaine.
Like several other organised crime networks, the Calabrians are on the up, according to those charged with fighting them. “Ndrangheta operations are now extensive across Europe,” Samuel Heath, communications director at Interpol, tells UnHerd. “Over the past few years, we have seen a significant increase in the scope and reach of ‘Ndrangheta: they’re operating in more than 40 countries and continuing to grow.”
If you want to see what the future of gangsterism looks like in a Europe which chooses to face the other way, look at Italy. There, even though mafia-related homicide is very low, the mafia is reaping the rewards of decades of entrenchment, and its grip on society is tightening. Every month, a city council is disbanded, which is the state’s measure of last-resort when there is evidence that the mafia has such a high level of influence over institutions that the whole municipality is deemed to be under its control. Between 1991 and 2020 there have been 351 such dissolutions in Italy, together affecting more than five million people. Calabria saw the most of any region in Italy, with 123 dissolutions. This is control without the need for gunfire or garrotting.
“Virtually no big infrastructure project, political campaign, natural emergency, from earthquakes to Covid subsidies, international event, sporting occasion, including the whole management of the San Siro football stadium in Milan, moves forward in Italy without the mafia trying to get a cut,” says Hauser. ”If no action is taken, this is where we end up.”
How the Italian mafia, fuelled by the cocaine trade, has used pizza restaurants as a way to expand its influence in one of the world’s most robust democracies is just part of a wider story about the relentless spread of worldwide organised crime. It’s also a warning.
The intermittent noise of gangsterism — a bloody street execution or an innocent caught in crossfire — naturally hits the headlines. Yet all the while, its more clandestine activities continue to rot societies from the inside, degrading the public’s right to hold power to account.
In hard times, their illegal wealth acts as a vortex of temptation to recruit the young to work on the criminal shopfloor, and to flip business owners, police and politicians. Furthermore, falling trust in mainstream political parties and institutions, complacency and rising extremism has opened the back door to criminal groups who want to get closer to power. Gangsters are useful to corrupt insiders because they can carry out deniable crimes at arms length on behalf of politicians or businesses. In return, they get impunity and favours. Together, the billions of dollars generated by organised crime and corruption each year acts as a vampiric-like leech on societies, widening inequality, making it harder for democracies to help citizens and make life better. Looking the other way is not an option.
