I repeat it often, but maybe it’s worthwhile, because the strength of those who oppose criminal organizations, even abroad, represents the decent part of society. I feel it deep inside and I read it in the rulings, in the polls, and in the analyses of hundreds of journalists, I hear it in the words of those who are truly fighting the ’Ndrangheta in Lombardy. Certainly it’s law enforcement, it’s the judiciary. But above all it’s the honest segment of Calabrian society. It’s the Italians who stopped organized crime in the US, the Turks who put an end to the Turkish mafia in Germany. There is always a decent part. That’s why using repression alone is a mistake. Every time there is a raid they tell us that the Mafia has been defeated, because fifty or five hundred people have been arrested.

Unfortunately, criminal organizations are at the forefront of this country’s economy. For example, they control food distribution: twenty thousand locations, a billion in revenue each year generated by restaurants alone, which is a tiny fragment of their business. Obstruction efforts should also start from here.

The investigation of Boccassini and Pignatone led to an unprecedented round-up: 160 Lombard associates were identified (though the total number would be much higher: 500), 15 ‘locali’ in Lombardy, including one in Milan’s city centre and others in Bollate, Erba, Cologno and Brianza. But, above all, the investigation brought to light the new mindset of the ’Ndrangheta, whose conduct has undergone a kind of ‘genetic mutation’ over the last ten years. Morphing into an ‘entrepreneurial mafia’, it has changed its focus from traditional homicides, kidnappings and major drug trafficking, to forms of control of various economic sectors (such as the building trade, excavation at construction sites and granting loans to people in need) and infiltration of public institutions at the local level. While there are, therefore, criminals in the organization, alongside them there are Lombard associates who are often free from any problems with the law.