The Anti-Mafia Movement in Milan
The Anti-Mafia Movement in Milan
Increasingly complicit politicians, businessmen, and professionals have allowed mafia groups to conquer significant sections of the market economy in Milan—far afield from their traditional base in southern Italy. But a growing anti-mafia movement, led by young people and championed by municipal politicians, is pushing back.
On October 19, 2013, thousands of Milan’s citizens—among them many young people and above all women—attended a special funeral in a central square of their city. Every Italian newspaper and network covered it. Lea Garofalo, a young Calabrian woman, had been murdered and burned under the orders of her partner, the boss of a drug clan close to the ‘Ndrangheta (the Calabrian Mafia) working in Milan. The coffin contained the woman’s few remains, which were found in the countryside in the summer of 2012. With the public funeral, the mayor of Milan, Giuliano Pisapia, and the anti-mafia association Libera, led by a well-known priest from Turin named Don Luigi Ciotti, sought to express solidarity with the victim and her young daughter Denise, who has been campaigning for justice for many years. Moreover, they wanted to affirm their city’s choice to fight against mafia power and its rise in Lombardy.
The ‘Ndrangheta in Milan
Originally from Calabria—the southernmost region of continental Italy, separated from Sicily only by a few kilometers—the mafia organization known as the ‘Ndrangheta has over the past twenty years extended its reach as far north as Lombardy, the country’s wealthiest and most populous region. Many factors have allowed it to gain supremacy there, most notably the crisis of the Sicilian Mafia after the frightful massacres of 1992–93, the complete neglect of the issue by the political institutions of northern Italy, and an astonishing silence from civil society. In addition, the Calabrian clans have found cover for their operations in a racist campaign against illegal immigrants, whom right-wing political parties have succeeded in portraying as the main security threat to northern Italy.
Increasingly complicit politicians, businessmen, and professionals have allowed the ‘Ndrangheta to conquer significant sections of the local market economy. Its monopoly of the so-called “cement production chain” and its stakes in shops, hotels, catering, and other industries have facilitated extensive money laundering—now much more common in Lombardy than in the rest of the country—and extended the clans’ territorial control both inside and outside the city. In the rich area of Brianza, on the outskirts of Milan, the clans have colonized entire towns through a combination of terror and the consent of local leaders. Several towns and villages are now identified by the Calabrian clans to whom they play host: the town of Buccinasco, for example, just south of Milan, is referred to as “the Platì of the North,” after the city in Calabria that nurtured some of the most ferocious clans in the history of the ‘Ndrangheta.
Increasingly complicit politicians, businessmen, and professionals have allowed the ‘Ndrangheta to conquer significant sections of the market economy in Milan—far afield from their traditional base in southern Italy.
This process of integration has generated its share of tensions in local politics. In Desio, a major urban center in Brianza, the city council split after an investigation highlighted the relationship between one ‘Ndrangheta clan and the local public administration. The judge in the case determined that the regional environment councilor, Massimo Ponzoni, acted as “social capital” for the clan. Similarly, last October the Italian government dissolved the town council of Sedriano, a town to the west of Milan, because of its mafia affiliations, in the first case of its kind in the history of Lombardy.
The inquiries of the anti-mafia section of the Milan Security Department, known by code names like “Cerberus,” “Parco sud,” and “Crimine infinito,” have thus far focused on mafia infiltration into real estate development—a market that criminal groups have typically entered by threatening construction projects with bombings and arson. The investigations have also started to reveal the infiltration of the ‘Ndrangheta into the Public Health Service, especially in the last decade. Thanks to a network of relationships with local and regional politicians, these have been years of total impunity for the clans, culminating in 2009 with the decision of Milan’s city council to hastily shut down an anti-mafia commission just one month after it was launched—again, an unprecedented event in Italian history. Mayors, prefects, members of parliament: all united in denying the presence of the mafia in their local territory, as the mayors of Palermo did thirty or forty years ago.
The Pisapia Administration
A couple of years ago, the situation started to change, leaving the city of Milan—and the rest of Lombardy—split in two. On one side, there was complicity with the strategies of mafia penetration; on the other, there was the development of a strong and genuine anti-mafia social movement. The first sign of a change came on March 20, 2010, when Libera, the most important Italian anti-mafia association, held its annual meeting in Milan. Founded by the fearless Don Luigi Ciotti, Libera is based in Rome and for many years focused its efforts on southern Italy. The meeting, intended to celebrate the memory of all victims of mafia violence, drew the largest crowds in Libera’s history, despite being scheduled far from the organization’s traditional southern base. About 150,000 participants, for the most part young people, flooded Duomo Square; Milan’s highest political authorities were not among them. From that day on, public involvement in the anti-mafia movement grew exponentially, with conferences, meetings, public demonstrations, and denunciations drawing unprecedented numbers of supporters. In the run-up to Milan’s 2011 municipal election, opposition candidate Giuliano Pisapia, a well-known lawyer representing the left-wing middle class, promised that reassembling the anti-mafia commission would be one of his priorities as mayor.
Pisapia’s victory—which came as a surprise to many in the city that elevated Silvio Berlusconi—radically changed the political scene, along with similar electoral results elsewhere in Lombardy over the course of the following year. In Corsico, a small city south of Milan with a strong and deep-rooted ‘Ndrangheta presence, Maria Ferrucci was elected mayor after a campaign focusing on the fight against organized crime. In Desio, a left-wing administration replaced the recently dissolved city council. And Lucrezia Ricchiuti, an activist who had been fighting the clans’ abuses for a decade—denouncing, often alone, their connections with the town’s urban planning division—became vice-mayor.
In 2010 Lombardy appointed Pietrogino Pezzano, known as the Doberman—a man caught chatting with men in the clans, who called him “a personal friend” in intercepted phone calls—as director of the biggest Italian public health care agency.
Pisapia kept his campaign promise, establishing two anti-mafia commissions in Milan—one formed by a delegation of all political parties and the other composed of independent experts appointed by the mayor—assigned to investigate the city environment, to suggest actions to break the ‘Ndrangheta clans’ growing hold on the city’s economy, and to promote what the mayor calls “civil anti-mafia.” This second commission has already published two reports, in August 2012 and May 2013. “Milan will no longer be theirs,” said Pisapia. “We are studying how to prevent them from accessing jobs in the public sector, for the 2015 Expo [being held in Milan] especially. They have to understand that their era has come to an end.”
In 2010 Lombardy appointed Pietrogino Pezzano, known as the Doberman—a man caught chatting with men in the clans, who called him “a personal friend” in intercepted phone calls—as director of the biggest Italian public health care agency. Those responsible for the appointment had not taken the new anti-mafia movement into their calculations. Roberto Nava, mayor of Vanzago, a small town west of Milan, rallied dozens of other mayors, including some from opposing political parties, in opposition to the appointment. At first, the region’s influential former president, Roberto Formigoni, continued to support Pezzano’s appointment despite the protests. But after an investigation by the Carabinieri, Italy’s military police, and a revolt by public administrators—backed by members of the left-wing opposition at the regional council—Formigoni was forced to retreat.
Flames in the City
Still, the other side has hardly admitted defeat. The clans and their allies, loathe to give up on profits they were promised, are studying “every possible way” they might bring their projects to fruition. In one striking case, companies close to the ‘Ndrangheta were in charge of catering at Milan’s town hall during a convention against criminality, with the mayor in attendance. In other cases, their presence has been less subtle. One day in October 2011, a major municipal-owned sports center in a western suburb of Milan was set on fire in the middle of the afternoon after the municipality revoked a ‘Ndrangheta-infiltrated company’s management concession. (The suburb, via Iseo, had for decades been controlled by the acolytes of Pepe Flachi, a Calabrian mob boss who is now in jail.) Similar cases of arson—though of less dramatic proportions—followed, targeting smaller private sports centers in the area.
The residents were not intimidated. Within days, a mass anti-mafia protest was organized in the neighborhood, again under the leadership of a woman, local administrator Beatrice Uguccioni. A novelty in Lombardy, where people were used to expressing solidarity to victims of mob violence in southern Italy but not in their own home, the protest drew around 1,500 people carrying torches and chanting “Gangs out of our neighborhoods!” The protests prompted a new enforcement effort focusing on amateur sports, an industry long guarded by the clans. Soccer, in particular, has played a key role in anchoring the ‘Ndrangheta‘s social consent: besides drawing in a wide cross section of society (among young people in particular), it is riddled by illegal betting tied to the London black market—a major source of profit for the clans. Several minor football teams have already been confiscated from the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria, and the tensions surrounding the clans’ presence in Milan are now becoming visible as well. In August, in the densely populated southern suburb of Lorenteggio, the former Colombo football field was set on fire ahead of a planned renovation. In response, local sports councilor Chiara Bisconti is testing out new strategies to rid the center’s management of ‘Ndrangheta, including establishing an ethical code that would aim to shield young athletes from any contact with the underworld.
So far, these long-term efforts have not slowed down the arsons, which remain the ‘Ndrangheta‘s favorite way to deliver a message. The May 2013 report commissioned by the Pisapia administration attests to continuously high levels of violence—one arson every two days over the course of two years, an average never before reached either in Milan or in many southern Italian cities. This can partly be explained by internal fights and vendettas between opposing criminal groups. But the main explanation is the siege that mafia organizations have launched on several neighborhoods in an effort to import their system into the city, after having triumphed more quietly in the countryside, albeit with the occasional help of explosives.
Desio, too, has had to pay the price for its “anti-mafia” administrative decisions. Last April, after the city council passed a resolution severely restricting new real estate development, clan members demolished a major municipal tech facility. Similar motives—that is, a desire for free access to real estate speculation—may also have prompted recent arsons in the City Forest and Caves Park areas of downtown Milan. Both public and private property have been targeted, from gourmet bakeries and glamorous night clubs to local pizza places and informal flower vendors. Gang control has been especially taxing on small business owners, whose response to arson and intimidation has opened a new chapter of the anti-mafia movement in the city.
In July 2012 a delivery van belonging to Loreno Tetti, a sandwich peddler in the student neighborhood surrounding Milan’s Polytechnic University, was set on fire. Tetti was the only sandwich peddler to testify in court against the local Flachi clan, which, according to the accusation in a criminal case, had for years been managing a systematic racket over this branch of the peddling business. His fellow peddlers, terrified, had all kept silent or denied their involvement; when Tetti failed to do the same, he was punished accordingly. But the students of the nearby faculty of physics, seeing the van consumed by fire the next morning, reported what happened and soon presented a petition in solidarity. Leading their efforts was Marilena Teri, twenty-two years old.
The growing culture of anti-mafia solidarity among Milan’s students has fostered short- and long-term campaigns.
“We could not abandon him to his fate,” she said. “We had no doubts in aligning ourselves with him, even if we had been told not to expose ourselves too much, since there was no evidence that he himself wasn’t involved with the racket in some way. But he testified against the extortionists. It couldn’t be clearer than that….” On September 10 Tetti’s van was back in business, with a big party in via Celoria to celebrate its reopening. At midday, hundreds of students from the polytechnic showed up to eat a sandwich at “Loreno’s,” as they now call it. Celebrating with them was the chairman of the city’s anti-mafia commission, David Gentili, and the town councilor for security, Marco Granelli.
This growing culture of anti-mafia solidarity among Milan’s students has fostered longer-term campaigns as well. The most significant so far, lasting a full school year, was in support of Denise, the young daughter of Lea Garofalo, whose crowded funeral was celebrated in the central Beccaria Square last October.
Lea Garofalo was a young woman from Calabria who decided to break free from the world of her husband Carlo. Carlo was a member of the ‘Ndrangheta-affiliated Cosco family, which originated in a small town in rural Calabria but had expanded its operations to Milan, where it was active in the drug trade.
Taking her daughter Denise with her, Lea left home and reported her husband and his fellow clan members to the police for murder and other crimes. In retribution, clan members lured her into a trap, kidnapped her, and murdered her in Milan, before burning and burying her body in the Brianza countryside. Her daughter Denise, just turned eighteen, bravely testified against her father. The trial, which began in the summer of 2011, concluded with a life sentence for four defendants and a twenty-five-year sentence for another, the youngest, who decided to collaborate with the authorities and help them find the victim’s remains. The court asserted that the woman’s own partner played a leading role in the crime.
The trial was remarkable for several reasons: first, the Pisapia city council’s choice to spearhead the charges in a civil proceeding, which served both to denounce the insult inflicted on the image of the city and also to declare its solidarity with Carlo’s daughter, who was forced to live undercover because of her choice to testify. But the fact that has most affected public opinion, both in Milan and at the national level, was the participation in the trial of teachers and students, and especially female students, in support of the young Denise. This was something the defendants, with their large families and numerous lawyers, were not prepared for—this solidarity with a girl their own age, a girl who was otherwise alone, which transformed the trial from a little-publicized affair into a nationwide scandal.
The story does not end there. In the days after the ruling, the young people who had consistently demonstrated at the Palace of Justice could not understand how, in spite of the life sentences, the clan of Cosco could continue, undisturbed, to squat in a public building that it had controlled by force for years. “How is it possible,” asked girls from a nearby high school, “that the Cosco clan, convicted for a terrible murder, could keep on living on public property even after the judgment? Who is protecting them?” They were referring to the so-called “Fort” at number 6 Via Montello, next to the Chinese quarter, which was entirely in the hands of the clan. Not satisfied with the explanation that the houses belonged to the general hospital, rather than the municipality, the students helped push for the mafia’s eviction from the building, which was carried out by the public housing department last June. It was a firm stand against the arrogance of the mafia, and a crucial step toward reestablishing trust in public institutions.
The Hundred Flowers of the Anti-Mafia Movement
In the meantime, there has been an increase in anti-mafia activities in civil society, with a kind of enthusiasm and involvement never before seen in northern Italy. At universities, faculties have instituted a variety of anti-mafia programs, which have been met with extraordinary student participation. Political scientists are the most involved, developing master’s degrees, workshops (in anti-mafia journalism, for example), a Summer School on Organized Crime, and a new Observatory on Organized Crime, as well as producing dozens of dissertations on the topic every year. Other universities, such as Bocconi, Bicocca, Cattolica, and the public Faculty of Legal Studies, offer their space for meetings and conventions. The organization Libera and the Association of the Schools of Milan for Legality and Active Citizenship promote constant activities in the schools. The New Academy of Fine Arts, in partnership with the political science department, has curated an exhibition on communication and memory (dedicated to the heroes of the fight against the mafia) that has been touring dozens of municipalities and universities all over Italy. In bookshops and libraries, presentations on the topic of organized crime are packed. Film and theater events about the mafia are also growing in popularity. There are now almost a dozen anti-mafia associations in the city in addition to Libera. Young university students have launched a website, www.stampoantimafioso.it, which narrates the battle between democracy and criminal power in Milan with both precision and passion. Hundreds of students from Milan have spent the last summer working as volunteers on lands confiscated from the mafia in southern regions of Italy. On the properties confiscated from the mafia in Milan—the municipality is now in possession of almost one hundred of them—the department for social policy has since 2012 organized a festival each November, with movies, music, book talks, and more. Local schoolchildren can tour the confiscated estates and learn how they were reclaimed for the people.
We understand that the clans in the next months will not just stay put and watch. But we are comforted by the thought that, as long as they have to face a social movement that has taken matters into its own hands rather than counting on judges and the police, the ‘Ndrangheta will at least remain on the defensive.
Nando dalla Chiesa is a professor of the sociology of organized crime at the State University of Milan.
