Foreign Correspondent: Apr 21

This week on Foreign Correspondent, Fran Kelly travels to Italy for her report, “The Magistrate vs The Mob.”

In Italy’s south, prosecutors in the province of Vibo Valentia are taking on the Calabrian mafia.

For decades, this ruthless mafia group, the ‘Ndrangheta, has ruled this region through violence and intimidation.

What began as a local mafia group has grown into a powerful, multi-national criminal organisation, with an estimated turnover of 80 billion dollars a year. It also has a presence in Australia.

Now Italian prosecutors have launched criminal cases against members of a family they allege is one of the ‘Ndrangehta’s most powerful clans – the Mancusos.

More than 300 members and associates of the Mancusos have been arrested.

The charge sheet is sobering. It includes murder, extortion, drug trafficking and money laundering.

In this gripping crime saga, Fran Kelly travels to Vibo Valentia to tell the story of this historic attempt to curb the power of the ‘Ndrangheta.

She gets rare access to the man leading the trial, Chief Prosecutor Nicola Gratteri. He’s been investigating the Calabrian mafia for decades and has long been the mafia’s kill list.

“There’s always tension. There’s always fear and you must always be careful,” he tells Kelly as he drives to court surrounded by his security motorcade. “You have to tame fear and talk to death.”

Kelly speaks with community members who now feel emboldened to speak out against the mafia.

”The number of people turning on the mafia has increased,” says anti-mafia activist Giuseppe Borrello. ‘It’s new for Vibo Valentia.”

Gratteri’s actions have given ‘a lot of hope’ to Sara Scarpulla, whose son was blown up in a car bomb organised by a member of the Mancuso family.

Kelly also visits Milan, Italy’s financial heart, where the ‘Ndrangheta have established a strong presence. The head of Milan’s Anti-Mafia Department, Prosecutor Alessandra Dolci, calls for Australian law enforcement to connect more urgently with their counterparts in Italy.

“It would be appropriate for the Australian police to establish stronger relations with our authorities,” she tells Kelly. “As we say, if you don’t know, you don’t see. They must become aware of the danger presented by the ‘Ndrangheta.”

In Calabria, not everyone in the community is rallying behind Nicola Gratteri’s maxi-trial.

“There’s vicious mudslinging aimed at the Prosecutor’s Office,” explains lawyer Giovanna Fronte. “That’s how the ‘Ndrangheta operates.”

For the people of Vibo Valentia, the maxi-trial has raised hopes of a new chapter in which the State regains control of a land long thought lost to organised crime.

But can these prosecutions uproot the powerful networks of the ‘Ndrangheta?

8pm Thursday on ABC.