Chiriaco managed more than 780 million euros and was sentenced for extortion in the first and second degree. He had acted as intermediary between several ’Ndranghetista families and a businessman who refused to pay the extortion. During his interrogation he told the judges: ‘I am morbidly fascinated by the urge to pretend I am a criminal. I say certain things to see what effect it has on others.’

What the Milanese told themselves for years is that the Mafia does not exist in Milan, that it’s far, far away. Instead, the control of the area is beginning to look more and more like that in the South. In Cisliano, for example, 12 miles from Milan, during a routine check in front of the restaurant La Masseria, one of the Valle clan’s men blocked a car of carabinieri who were patrolling the area. These are things that used to happen only in Casal di Principe, in Platì, in areas where the mafias regimentally control the area.

Then, too, just like in the South, the organizations seek the support of the parties in power. And in areas where the Lega Nord holds power, even from the League. As evidenced by the investigation conducted by prosecutors Boccassini and Pignatone, in 2009 Pino Neri and other bosses made contact with a regional councilman in Lombardy, a member of the League; though the investigations show that the bosses asked him to support the election of a political ally of theirs, he was not arrested later. Moreover, in a 1999 interview Gianfranco Miglio, one of the fathers of the League, stated:

I am in favour of maintaining the Mafia and the ’Ndrangheta. The South should adopt a statute based on the character of the controlling body. […] I do not want to reduce the South to the European model, it would be an absurdity. There is good patronage as well, which determines economic growth. All in all, we must start from the notion that a number of phenomena typical of the South need to be constitutionalized.

The Lega Nord has essentially always presented a repressive opposition to criminal organizations; it has always fought against the bosses’ obligatory presence in the North. Handcuffs. Suppression. Agreed, but that’s not enough. Because the strength of criminal organizations lies in money, including legal money that the mob craves and has collected for decades. And the mafias’ legal money also drenches the North.