Experts commend Mafia-linked women's help in crime fight

Italian experts highly commended those women from the mafia clans for their involvement and dedication in the struggle against organized crime while attending a recent conference hosted by Italian anti-mafia commission in Rome. "Focusing on women can certainly be a most successful strategy in order to break mafia power," Alessandra Cerreti, anti-mafia prosecutor in Reggio Calabria, told Xinhua. Gathered in a meeting at the Lower House on March 11, specialists, politicians, and crime reporters focused on the link between women and 'Ndrangheta, the mafia organization based in the southern Calabria region that is currently regarded as the most dangerous Italian mob. 'Ndrangheta annual turnover is estimated in 52.6 billion euros (73 billion U.S. Dollars), according to a 2013 evaluation by Demoskopika research institute based on Interior Ministry and Anti-Mafia Investigation Department data. The Calabrian mob is also a top criminal organisation worldwide, with business focused on cocaine and a network that spreads over continents. And yet, deal with 'Ndrangheta by force and hit its financial interests would not be enough, experts suggested. The problem should be tackled by the inside as well. "It is important to dwell on women, who are victims but often also accomplices of the mob, because we need to understand if something is changing within the values system of mafia families," MP Rosy Bindi, president of the Italian anti-mafia commission, explained. As a matter of fact, some changes seem indeed to be underway, according to those facing this struggle day after day. "We had some women who broke ranks with their families, and they gave a crucial contribution against 'Ndrangheta," prosecutor Cerreti confirmed. "Their information and knowledge helped us understand the internal structure and balance of power of the clans, and to discover their properties, often disguised under fictitious owners," she explained. Female turncoats are very dangerous to the 'Ndrangheta, experts said, also because their defiance shows that mobsters have not full control over "their" own wives, daughters, or sisters. Such a "dangerous" rebel proved to be Giuseppina Pesce, from the small Calabrian town of Rosarno, whose testimony was successfully managed by prosecutor Cerreti. A young mother of three, Pesce testified against her own father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, and husband in a trial ended in 2013. She helped to put all them and other 36 mobsters in jail, and unveiled structure, dynamics and hidden properties of Pesce family, a most powerful clan. "When she knew I would come to this conference, Giuseppina Pesce asked me to explain the reason why she decided to testify against her family and clan," Cerreti said. "She always asks me this... to tell people that she did it for her children, to give them a different future". In Pesce's hometown, Rosarno, another woman stands against 'Ndrangheta every single day, living under 24-hour police protection. "The family structure of the 'Ndrangheta is based upon marriages, alliances, bonds of blood. While its business is very modern and worldwide, its 'sub-culture' remains quite archaic", Mayor Elisabetta Tripodi explained to Xinhua. Women usually decide to stand against her own family in order to refuse the violence that this model entails for them and her children, the mayor said. Together with the seizure of assets, this can give a most sever blow to a secretive structure such as the 'Ndrangheta. Yet, it often comes with a very high price. "We had discordant episodes in recent years," Tripodi said. "Some female informers gave a crucial contribution to the most successful operations against the 'Ndrangheta. On the other hand, though, we saw serie cases of women dying before or just after speaking out, and mysterious 'suicides' quite difficult to explain," Tripodi said. It happened to Lea Garofalo, abducted and killed by her former partner in 2009. Her body was dissolved in acid. Maria Concetta Cacciola is another victim who was forced to drink hydrochloric acid by her own parents and brother in 2011, in order to fake a suicide. 'Ndrangheta chooses those ways to tell women to "keep rank". "Their death was a bad blow, indeed, but they left a bud and we are determined to collect it," she said. "The proof is that we now have a very new informer, a girl from 'Ndrangheta. She recently turned to us and she is speaking out, under anonymity," Cerreti concluded.