1.
Reggio Calabria
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Reggio di Calabria, commonly known as Reggio Calabria listen or simply Reggio in Southern Italy, is the biggest city and the most populated comune of Calabria, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, Reggio is located on the toe of the Italian Peninsula and is separated from the island of Sicily by the Strait of Messina. It is situated on the slopes of the Aspromonte, a long, about 560,000 people live in the metropolitan area, recognised in 2015 by Italian Republic as a metropolitan city. The region has been subject to earthquakes and it is a major economic center for regional services and transport on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Reggio, with Naples and Taranto, is home to one of the most important archaeological museums, Reggio is the seat, since 1907, of the Archeological Superintendence of Bruttium and Lucania. The city center, consisting primarily of Liberty buildings, has a development along the coast with parallel streets. The city was an Italian candidate to become the European Capital of Culture. in 2019, during its 3, 500-year history Reggio has often been renamed. Each name corresponds with the major historical phases, Recion. Erythrà, the pre-Greek settlement populated by the Italic people, Rhégion, the Greek city from the archaic age to the Magna Grecia age, from the 8th to the 3rd centuries BC. Febèa, a period under Dionysius II of Syracuse, in the 4th century BC. Regium, its first Latin name, during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, rhègium Julium, as a noble Roman city during the Imperial age. Rivàh, Arabic name under the domination by Emirate of Sicily. Rìsa, under the Normans, between the 11th and 12th centuries, regols, Aragonese name under the Crown of Aragon, in the late 13th century. Reggio or Regio, usual Italian name in the Middle and Modern age, règgio di Calàbria, post Italian Unification. The toponym of the city is derived from Chaldean word Rec or maybe from the Greek one régnȳmi referring to the Straits between Calabria and Sicily as a break in the land. The sculptor Léarchos was at Reggio at the end of the 15th century BC, the land around Reggio was first known as Saturnia, or Neptunia, and later Italia, which in Roman times became the name of the whole Italian peninsula. After Cumae, Reggio is one of the oldest Greek colonies in southern Italy, the colony was settled by the inhabitants of Chalcis in 730 or 743 BC on the site of the older settlement, Erythrà, meaning the Red one. This dated back to the 3rd millennium BC and was established by the Ausones
2.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
3.
Italians
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Italians are a nation and ethnic group native to Italy who share a common culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a native tongue. The majority of Italian nationals are speakers of Standard Italian. Italians have greatly influenced and contributed to the arts and music, science, technology, cuisine, sports, fashion, jurisprudence, banking, Italian people are generally known for their localism and their attention to clothing and family values. The term Italian is at least 3,000 years old and has a history that goes back to pre-Roman Italy. According to one of the common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The Etruscan civilization reached its peak about the 7th century BC, but by 509 BC, when the Romans overthrew their Etruscan monarchs, its control in Italy was on the wane. By 350 BC, after a series of wars between Greeks and Etruscans, the Latins, with Rome as their capital, gained the ascendancy by 272 BC, and they managed to unite the entire Italian peninsula. This period of unification was followed by one of conquest in the Mediterranean, in the course of the century-long struggle against Carthage, the Romans conquered Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Finally, in 146 BC, at the conclusion of the Third Punic War, with Carthage completely destroyed and its inhabitants enslaved, octavian, the final victor, was accorded the title of Augustus by the Senate and thereby became the first Roman emperor. After two centuries of rule, in the 3rd century AD, Rome was threatened by internal discord and menaced by Germanic and Asian invaders. Emperor Diocletians administrative division of the empire into two parts in 285 provided only temporary relief, it became permanent in 395, in 313, Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity, and churches thereafter rose throughout the empire. However, he moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople. The last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 by a Germanic foederati general in Italy and his defeat marked the end of the western part of the Roman Empire. During most of the period from the fall of Rome until the Kingdom of Italy was established in 1861, Odoacer ruled well for 13 years after gaining control of Italy in 476. Then he was attacked and defeated by Theodoric, the king of another Germanic tribe, Theodoric and Odoacer ruled jointly until 493, when Theodoric murdered Odoacer. Theodoric continued to rule Italy with an army of Ostrogoths and a government that was mostly Italian, after the death of Theodoric in 526, the kingdom began to grow weak
4.
'Ndrangheta
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The Ndràngheta is organized crime centered in Calabria, Italy. A US diplomat estimated that the narcotics trafficking, extortion. Since the 1950s, the organization has spread towards Northern Italy, according to a 2013 Threat Assessment on Italian Organised Crime of Europol, the Ndrangheta is among the richest and most powerful organised crime groups at a global level. In 1861 the prefect of Reggio Calabria already noticed the presence of so-called camorristi, since the 1880s, there is ample evidence of Ndrangheta-type groups in police reports and sentences by local courts. At the time they were often being referred to as the picciotteria, onorata società or camorra, an 1897 sentence from the court in Palmi mentioned a written code of rules found in the village of Seminara based on honour, secrecy, violence, solidarity and mutual assistance. In the folk culture surrounding Ndrangheta in Calabria, references to the Spanish Garduña often appear, aside from these references, however, there is nothing to substantiate a link between the two organizations. In many areas of Calabria the verb ndranghitiari, from the Greek verb andragathízesthai, the first time the word Ndrangheta was mentioned before a wider audience was by the Calabrian writer Corrado Alvaro in the Corriere della Sera in September 1955. Until 1975, the Ndrangheta restricted their Italian operations to Calabria, mainly involved in extortion and their involvement in cigarette contraband expanded their scope and contacts with the Sicilian Mafia and the neapolitan Camorra. With the arrival of public works in Calabria, skimming off public contracts became an important source of income. Disagreements over how to distribute the spoils led to the First Ndrangheta war killing 233 people, the prevailing factions began to kidnap rich people from northern Italy for ransom. It is believed that John Paul Getty III, kidnapped for ransom in 1973, was one of their victims, the Second Ndrangheta war raged from 1985 to 1991. The bloody six-year war between the Condello-Imerti-Serraino-Rosmini clans and the De Stefano-Tegano-Libri-Latella clans led to more than 600 deaths, the Sicilian Mafia contributed to the end of the conflict and probably suggested the subsequent set up of a superordinate body, called La Provincia, to avoid further infighting. In the 1990s, the organization started to invest in the international drug trade. Deputy President of the parliament of Calabria Francesco Fortugno was killed by the Ndrangheta on 16 October 2005 in Locri. Demonstrations against the organization then ensued, with young protesters carrying banderoles reading Ammazzateci tutti, the national government started a large-scale enforcement operation in Calabria and arrested numerous ndranghetisti including the murderers of Fortugno. The Ndrangheta has recently expanded its activities to Northern Italy, mainly to sell drugs, in May 2007 twenty members of Ndrangheta were arrested in Milan. On 30 August 2007, hundreds of police raided the town of San Luca, over 30 men and women, linked to the killing of six Italian men in Germany, were arrested. On 9 October 2012, following a long investigation by the central government the City Council of Reggio Calabria headed by Mayor Demetrio Arena was dissolved for alleged ties to the group
5.
Giorgio De Stefano
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Giorgio De Stefano was a high-ranking boss of the Ndrangheta, a Mafia-type criminal organisation in Calabria. Together with his brothers Paolo, Giovanni and Orazio he headed the De Stefano ndrina, during the war he survived an assassination attempt by hitmen loyal to Tripodo, inside the Roof Garden bar in Reggio Calabria, which led to the death of his brother Giovanni. Tripodo would later be killed in prison by men loyal to Raffaele Cutolo, the Santa allowed the Ndrangheta to enter lucrative public contracts. After the war Giorgio De Stefano had become extremely powerful (he had links with Cosa Nostra, politics, neo-fascist terrorists, the other ndrine began fearing for their businesses and so decided to kill him. By extorting a bribe of a building contractor already under the protection of the Piromallis, Ndrangheta bosses Giuseppe Piromalli and Rocco Musolino were indicted as being responsible for the murder of Giorgio De Stefano, but were later acquitted for lack of evidence. Cosa Nostra, Ndrangheta and Camorra from 1946 to the Present, London, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 978-1444726435 Gratteri, fratelli di Sangue, Cosenza, Luigi Pellegrini Editore ISBN 88-8101-373-8
6.
De Stefano 'ndrina
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The De Stefano ndrina is one of the most powerful clans of the Ndrangheta, a criminal and mafia-type organisation in Calabria, Italy. The ndrina hailed from the Archi neighbourhood in Reggio Calabria, several of its members were included in the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy. Within two years moved from being simple Ndranghetisti to being the new lords of Reggio Calabria. Before that time the clan had not been prominent, according to the pentito Giacomo Lauro. In 1970 … the De Stefanos … were nobody, they were nobody, the De Stefano brothers became the owners of Reggio Calabria after the war, the first mafia war. … I do not want to swear, but who the fuck were the De Stefanos in the 1970s and they had killed a certain Sergi for four oxen, for a fraud of four oxen in Modena … These were the De Stefanos. They committed petty fraud for four cows, … then with cigarettes, through the membership of covert Masonic lodges the Ndrangheta bosses were able to contact law enforcement authorities, judges and politicians that were necessary to access to public work contracts. The De Stefanos, however, were modern and the differences led to conflicts. They also robbed a shipment of smuggled tobacco belonging to Tripodo and these innovations and the institution of La Santa were opposed by the more traditionalist chiefs like Tripodo and Antonio Macrì. The war started with an attack on the brothers Giorgio, Paolo, Giovanni was killed while the eldest of the brothers – and the boss of the clan – Giorgio was wounded. Tripodo was arrested in February 1975 and incarcerated in the Poggioreale prison in Naples and he was killed with the help of Camorra boss Raffaele Cutolo, the boss of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata who worked with the De Stefano’s in drug trafficking. They also supported prince Junio Valerio Borghese and his plans for a neo-fascist coup, the so-called Golpe Borghese fizzled out in the night of December 8,1970, however. The De Stefanos entered in a Masonic lodge in order to take care of business. They were also close to Lodovico Ligato, a Christian Democrat politician from Reggio Calabria and he was killed by rival Ndrangheta groups in August 1989 in a dispute about bribes over public contracts. The Ndrangheta exploited the construction of the steelworks until the project was abandoned when the government decided there was no base for it. In 1977 disagreements about business interests emerged between Piromalli and the De Stefano clan, a hit squad headed by Giuseppe Peppe Piromalli killed Giorgio De Stefano. Some 1,000 people were killed in clan wars over the construction contracts, Paolo took over the leadership of the clan. In the 1980s, the De Stefano brothers controlled virtually the entire wholesale meat market of Reggio Calabria and they forced butchers and supermarkets, through intimidation and threats, to buy meat from their companies
7.
Pentito
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The judicial category of pentiti was originally created in legislation passed by the Italian government in the 1970s to combat violence and terrorism during the so-called Years of Lead. The correct technical name used for them is collaborators of justice, in exchange for the information they deliver, pentiti receive shorter sentences for their crimes, in some cases even freedom. In the Italian judicial system, pentiti can obtain personal protection, a new name and this practice is common in other countries as well. In the United States, criminals testifying against their former associates can enter the Witness Protection Program, and be given new identities with supporting paperwork. The Italian Mafia bosses Buscetta and Francesco Marino Mannoia were allowed to live in the U. S. under new identities in the Witness Protection Program when Italy did not yet have such a program, among the most famous Mafia pentiti is Tommaso Buscetta, the first important pentito. In Italy, important successes were achieved with the cooperation of pentiti in the fight against terrorism, in the period until the 1990s, there were very few, albeit significant, pentiti such as Tommaso Buscetta, Salvatore Contorno, Antonino Calderone, etc. However, this changed significantly during the early 1990s, from 1992, over a thousand mafiosi have agreed to collaborate with Italian justice. In some cases, pentiti have invented stories to obtain reductions in jail time, a famous case regarded the popular TV anchorman Enzo Tortora, who was falsely accused of cocaine trafficking and Camorra membership by a pentito named Giovanni Melluso. Tortora was detained for years before being cleared, he developed cancer and died soon after the case was finally solved, leonardo Vitale was one of the first to become a pentito in 1973, although originally his confessions were not taken seriously. Tommaso Buscetta was the first important pentito against the Sicilian Mafia and he started to collaborate with anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1984. His testimony was of importance in the landmark Maxi Trial of 1986–87. Salvatore Contorno started to collaborate in October 1984, following the example of Buscetta, Antonino Calderone started to collaborate in April 1987. Francesco Marino Mannoia started to collaborate in October 1989 and he was the first pentito who used to belong to the winning faction of the Second Mafia War. Giovanni Brusca, murderer of anti-Mafia prosecutor Falcone, began to collaborate in 1996, Salvatore Cancemi, another of Falcones assassins, turned himself to the Carabinieri in July 1993 and immediately began collaborating. Gaspare Mutolo, started to collaborate in prison in May 1992, pasquale Barra, the first pentito and high-ranking member of Raffaele Cutolos Nuova Camorra Organizzata. Pasquale Galasso, former high-ranking member of the Nuova Famiglia faction of the Camorra, carmine Alfieri, former Boss of Bosses of the Nuova Famiglia. Carmine Schiavone, former high-ranking member of the Casalesi clan, maurizio Abbatino, former boss of the Banda della Magliana. Felice Maniero, former boss of the Mala del Brenta, patrizio Peci, first pentito and militant of Red Brigades
8.
Domenico Tripodo
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Domenico Tripodo was an Italian criminal and a historical and charismatic boss of the Ndrangheta dominating the city of Reggio Calabria and the surrounding areas. Also known as Don Mico Tripodo he was one of the most powerful Ndrangheta bosses of his time, Tripodo rose to power by ousting the old Reggio boss Domenico Strati after a two-year conflict in 1958-59. In the 1960s, he formed a sort of triumvirate with Antonio Macrì, the triumvirate’s senior position was recognized by all other family chiefs and their advice was in most cases followed without protest. Tripodo acquired considerable financial resources through tobacco smuggling and he had relations with the Sicilian Mafia and was the compare d’anello of Mafia boss Totò Riina at his wedding in 1974. According to Enzo Ciconte, a specialist on the Ndrangheta and a consultant for the Antimafia Commission, Tripodo was opposed by his former underbosses in Reggio, the De Stefano brothers. They won a monopoly of construction work in northern Reggio Calabria, moving the rival Tripodo group out of the market of public contracts with the support of the Piromalli. They also robbed a shipment of smuggled tobacco belonging to Tripodo, the various disagreement led to bloodshed in the First Ndrangheta war, which took place in 1974-76. Tripodo tried to strike first, killing Giovanni De Stefano in 1974, Tripodo did not see the end of the conflict. He was arrested on February 21,1975, and incarcerated in the Poggioreale prison in Naples, paolo De Stefano emerged as the new leader of the Reggio Calabria Ndrangheta. After the defeat, his son Carmelo Tripodo first moved to north Italy, later to Caserta in Campania and he allied himself with the Calabrian Imerti-Condello clan, historical enemies of the De Stefanos. He was arrested on October 30,1996, in Rome on charges of extortion, the Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Oxford, Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-285197-7 Paoli, Letizia. Mafia Brotherhoods, Organized Crime, Italian Style, New York, Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-515724-9
9.
Capobastone
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The Capobastone is a high-ranking Ndrangheta who is in charge of a ndrina. It is the Calabrian equivalent for the Sicilian Capofamiglia, in a ndrina, the Capobastone make the most important decisions, and report only at the Capo crimine, the head of the Crimine. Sometimes he can take the control of all Ndrangheta, but he has to be elected by the various Capibastone, domenico Mico Tripodo Antonio Zzi ntoni Macrì Girolamo Mommo Piromalli Paolo De Stefano Giuseppe u tiradrittu Morabito Pasquale u supremu Condello
