(dynamic music)
(dramatic music)
(sledgehammer clanking)
- There's a new front line
in the war against organised crime.
(shouting in foreign language)
In southern Italy's rugged highlands,
a previously unknown criminal group meets.
It was just about here
that some of the top bosses were standing
having their secret meeting.
Called the 'Ndrangheta,
its bosses are Europe's
biggest cocaine traffickers.
(shouting in foreign language)
The police are fighting back,
forcing Mafiosi underground
into bizarre and sophisticated bunkers.
(dramatic music)
Holy moley.
From here, they run
their criminal empires,
protected by a wall of silence.
They dug up the whole
street to bury their bunkers
and nobody breathed a word!
This is the story of a little-known Mafia,
whose secret inner workings
are only now coming to light.
(tools banging)
(peaceful music)
This is Calabria, a
beautiful and blighted region
at the very tip of Italy's boot.
As a historian, I've spent years
studying Italian organised crime.
Now I've come to this
mountainous peninsula,
a stone's throw from the island of Sicily,
to investigate Italy's most mysterious
and powerful Mafia, the 'Ndrangheta.
(suspenseful music)
The Cacciatore, the hunters,
are an elite law-enforcement unit.
They've agreed to take me deep
into 'Ndrangheta territory.
- [John] Lieutenant
Angelo Zizzi and his men
often have to operate under
the cover of darkness.
(suspenseful music)
- After two-and-a-half hours
we reach a small village
high up in the mountains.
It's four in the morning.
(eerie music)
With the mist on the mountains
here, and the silence,
there's something really
spooky about this place.
(eerie music)
Now abandoned, this house was once used
as a base by Calabrian criminals.
- There's something fiendishly
clever about this mechanism,
the kind of James Bond villain fashion.
(eerie music)
- [John] The concealed entrance
leads to a narrow passage.
It's pretty tight in here.
This secret hideout was
discovered almost by chance
when the team were pursuing a group
of 'Ndranghetan gangsters.
- [John] When Zizzi and
his team first entered,
there was no sign of
the men they were after.
- [John] What they'd stumbled upon
was not just one concealed bunker,
it was a whole warren of
underground passageways,
false walls and secret rooms.
- The tunnels fan out under the village,
linking hideouts and escape routes.
So the tunnel system was a kind of map
of the 'Ndrangheta
network in this village.
(eerie music)
It's a claustrophobic maze,
completely disorientating.
(eerie music)
This is a completely different house.
It's a completely different house.
Another secret entrance under the stairs
and we're into a completely new house.
Absolutely amazing.
By the time I got out, dawn had broken.
We came in somewhere over there!
When the Cacciatore got into
the first part of this system,
there were six people in there.
The Cacciatore had
surrounded the whole area,
and there was a chase
through this bunker system
with its different exits, each
Cacciatore having to follow
a different Ndranghetisti
as he made his escape.
Three of the Ndranghetisti got away,
and having been through
that system of tunnels,
I can really see why.
Building a subterranean
labyrinth was a major enterprise.
Somebody must have noticed
all the work going on,
but not a soul told the authorities.
For more than a century,
the men of the 'Ndrangheta
have been the undisputed authority
in these mountain villages.
To understand the nature
of their dominance,
you need to understand
the geography of Calabria.
And that means taking to the air.
(dramatic music)
(people chattering)
This is very exciting for two reasons,
one, because I've never
been in a helicopter before,
and two, because now we're going to see
some of the wildest parts
of Calabria from the air.
(dramatic music)
We took off from the
city of Reggio Calabria,
one of the Mafia power bases on the coast.
But the heart of 'Ndrangheta territory
is Aspromonte, the harsh mountain.
(dramatic music)
There's no other word for
Aspromonte but majestic.
An extraordinary sight!
Aspromonte is inaccessible.
The law has never had
much of a foothold here.
The 'Ndrangheta is a secret
society of criminals,
and for a long time these
remote mountain settlements
have been its fortresses.
In the 1970s and '80s,
the 'Ndrangheta took to
kidnapping for ransom,
using these remote mountains
to hide the captives,
often for years.
Each of these villages is
controlled by a different clan.
(gentle music)
If you know where to look,
it's not hard to see who's in charge.
We're about to fly over a villa
that a 'Ndrangheta boss
had built for himself.
And he wanted it to look exactly like
Tony Montana's villa
in Scarface, the movie.
I suppose all gangsters are
gangster wannabes at heart.
(suspenseful music)
Today, the main source of the
'Ndrangheta's wealth and power
lies 20 minutes' flight northwest,
at the port of Gioia Tauro.
(suspenseful music)
Opened in the 1990s, Gioia
Tauro is now the biggest
container port in the Mediterranean.
It should have been good news
for this underdeveloped region.
(suspenseful music)
- For the 'Ndrangheta,
the port of Gioia Tauro
is the hen that laid the golden eggs.
(suspenseful music)
Extorting a protection payment
on every container is just the start.
The main illegal business
here is smuggling.
- [Translator] Ordinary commercial routes
are used as Trojan horses.
From bananas to frozen prawns,
from iron to hazelnuts.
Any cargo shipped from
South America to Europe,
and the port of Gioia Tauro,
can be used as cover for
'Ndrangheta's cocaine.
(speaks in foreign language)
- [John] Thousands of containers
pass through the port every day.
It's impossible to check
and scan more than a handful of them.
The best chance of catching
the cocaine shipment
is through intelligence on the ground,
but even there, the criminals
are often one step ahead.
- [Translator] The 'Ndrangheta plant
their own men in the port.
Just like we watch them, they watch us.
- The sheer scale of this
place is awe-inspiring.
The ships are like tower blocks,
the piles of containers
go on for kilometres,
and if you think that
a big load of cocaine
is about the size of a wardrobe,
it makes it very clear
that the old cliche about
looking for a needle in a
haystack just doesn't come close.
It's estimated no more than 20%
of the cocaine coming through the port
is intercepted by the authorities.
But even that amounts
to an impressive haul.
- A 100,000 euros just
for that, just for that
and look at it.
This is a whole wardrobe
full of the stuff.
- [John] And that's not all.
- Wow!
- Ah, okay.
Three tonnes of pure cocaine
have been seized here
in the last two years.
And of course this is only a tiny part
of the total amount of cocaine
that's flooding through
the port of Gioia Tauro.
This is quite extraordinary.
The Calabrian Mafia, the
'Ndrangheta, is today the biggest
cocaine-trafficking syndicate in Europe.
The trade is global,
but some of the profits
end up close to home.
Overlooking the port
is the town of Rosarno,
home to one of the 'Ndrangheta's
most ruthless cells,
the Pesce clan.
- [John] Carabinieri
Special Agent Giuseppe Lumia
knows more about the
Pesce clan than anyone.
- [John] As well as cocaine-trafficking,
the Pesce clan grew rich
from extortion and fraud.
In this small, rundown
town, the clan members
enjoyed the good life,
none more so than their
chief, Ciccio Pesce.
(men whistling and cheering)
(ominous music)
- The house occupies a position like a
baron's castle in the old days.
At 30 years of age, Ciccio Pesce
became the youngest known
boss of an 'Ndrangheta clan.
His swift rise to power
was witnessed by a man
who has since become one of the very few
Calabrian Mafiosi to turn State witness.
For security reasons, we
can't reveal his identity.
We'll call him Tony.
What kind of man is Ciccio Pesce?
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Translator] I've known
him since he was a child,
Ciccio Pesce.
When he was 14 or 15, on New Year's Eve,
he went round town with his
friends with some Kalashnikovs.
He sprayed the streets and the
shop shutters with bullets.
There was no particular reason to do so.
He just wanted to make a mess,
because power was growing in his hands.
- [John] Extreme violence
was the basis of Ciccio Pesce's power.
- [Translator] People
respected him out of fear.
They were scared of rebelling,
because he'd become the
absolute ruler of our area.
- [John] As one of the
poorest regions in Europe,
Calabria received huge subsidies
from the European Union
for public construction works and farming.
Mobsters like Ciccio Pesce
have stolen much of that money.
Tony helped Pesce make millions
through a colossal scam involving oranges!
- [Translator] The oranges had
to be delivered to a plant,
but we wouldn't take anything there.
We would take the paperwork
the night before, however,
and in the morning it would be
signed by corrupt officials,
saying the oranges had been delivered.
After 90 days, we would receive
the funds for the oranges
from the European Union.
- And how much did you
make in an average year?
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Translator] I was small
fry, but in a good year
I could make 300,000 to
400,000 euros from oranges.
- And a boss like Ciccio
Pesce, how much would he make?
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Translator] Someone like Ciccio Pesce,
who owned the farms, the plants,
the transport companies, everything,
he'd make, out of the oranges scam alone,
some five to six million euros a year.
The clan would invest the
money in drugs and weapons,
and they would double it, even treble it.
- [John] The 'Ndrangheta
is highly territorial.
When they fall foul of the law,
bosses like Ciccio Pesce
very rarely take flight.
Instead, they go to ground close to home.
- [Translator] The man
of honour, the leader,
never leaves his own turf.
For them, a bunker is a investment
if someone needs to lay low for a while,
hoping the police will
lose interest in them.
- Many of these bunkers were made of old
shipping containers, sunk into
the soil of the orange groves
and kitted out with everything
a boss would need to lie low.
(ominous music)
Of course a bunker is only safe
if its location is kept secret.
In Calabria, where the 'Ndrangheta
is more feared than the law,
the blanket of silence known as Omerta
is as thick as anywhere in Italy.
So it's not surprising
that not many people
have broken the regime of Omerta.
I'm on my way now to find
out what happens when you do.
(suspenseful music)
I've been given an address
some 10 miles south of Rosarno.
It looks like my arrival
is being closely monitored.
(dog barking)
This fortified compound is
where construction entrepreneur
Gaetano Saffioti lives and works.
It's the only place Saffioti
would agree to meet.'
(speaking in foreign language)
- [John] Saffioti's
company grew from nothing
into a multi-million-pound business
until in 2002, the profits crashed.
- [John] For years, like
most businesses in the area,
Saffioti had paid regular
extortion money to the 'Ndrangheta
but as he became more successful,
they wanted more and more control.
When he tried to buy a plot of land,
the mobsters made their move.
- [Translator] And then what happened?
One night they set fire to
my bulldozer to tell me,
you've done something you shouldn't have.
- [John] Saffioti turned
to the state for help,
but he soon learned who's
really in charge in Calabria.
- [Translator] I went
to report who'd done it,
I was told perhaps it's better
you keep that to yourself,
you know how these things
end up and my heart sank.
And so there is this facade of a state
and there is this real state,
paradoxically, the real
state is the 'Ndrangheta.
- [John] The campaign of
intimidation escalated.
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Translator] In the middle of the day,
they showed up and threatened my staff,
including my brother.
They gave him a tank
of petrol and told him,
"Pour this petrol over the
vehicle and set it alight."
- [John] Saffioti had
been pushed to the edge.
He decided to fight back.
- [John] For months,
Saffioti risked his life
to capture his tormentors on film,
as they came for their
pay-off, on this occasion,
several thousand pounds.
- [John] In an unprecedented act,
Saffioti took this evidence
to a public prosecutor.
On the night of January 25th 2002,
45 'Ndrangheta members were arrested.
But this was not the end
of Saffioti's problems.
- [Translator] When someone talks about
one's life changing overnight,
it may sound exaggerated.
But in this case,
my world was really turned
upside down overnight.
My 65 employees must have
learnt about the arrests
before they came out in the papers,
because in the morning only
five showed up for work.
On the same day, all
of our orders dried up.
The banks closed my accounts,
even the active ones,
not just the overdrafts.
Cancelling my overdrafts was bad enough,
but I couldn't even withdraw my own money.
It was completely absurd, I
was ostracised by everyone,
as if I'd become a terrible criminal.
- [John] Many of Saffioti's
friends shunned him.
In Calabria, even law-abiding citizens
wouldn't risk defying the 'Ndrangheta
by being seen with a man like him.
(suspenseful music)
- [John] 45 bullets,
one for each of the men
that Saffioti had had arrested.
- [Translator] And then
the police turned up.
They said, "We are here for you,
because from now on,
you're under protection."
That was it.
The beginning.
(suspenseful music)
- The situation in Calabria can seem
incomprehensible at first glance,
but to really understand
what's going on there,
we need to take a step back,
or rather take a trip across
the straits to Sicily.
(peaceful music)
This beautiful island has long been home
to the notorious Cosa Nostra.
For the last 30 years, the Italian state
has been struggling to
contain the most powerful
criminal organisation in modern history.
(peaceful music)
Coming to Palermo today,
you have to make an effort to
remember that 25 years ago,
this was a city in the grip of terror.
The bloodiest Mafia war
in history was going on.
Hundreds of people were being killed,
bodies were being left
burning in the street
or taken out to the sea and dumped.
Cosa Nostra was killing magistrates,
policemen, journalists, politicians.
That violence reached its savage climax
with the 1992 bombing
assassinations of anti-Mafia judges
Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
Cosa Nostra had declared war on the state
and seemed to be winning.
(sombre music)
- [Translator] It felt like
the country was on its knees.
If they were able to blow up a motorway
and kill magistrates under the
highest level of protection
and also kill our police
colleagues escorting them,
then I felt this was an extremely powerful
and terrifying organisation
which would stop at nothing.
- [John] It's been a long,
hard road for the state
to win back credibility.
A key success came in 2006
when, after 43 years on the run,
Cosa Nostra's boss of
bosses was finally arrested.
- [Translator] The
uncatchable had been caught.
In that moment, the people
felt a burst of courage
and wanted to show it by coming
to our Palermo headquarters
to express solidarity with us,
and the belief that this
battle could be won.
- [John] If organised
crime is to be defeated,
ordinary people need to
be empowered to resist.
They have to believe
that police and judges
are not in the pay of the mobsters,
and that those who stand up to
the Mafia will be protected.
Now, in Sicily, that
is beginning to happen.
- We promote a sort of a rebellion,
a cultural revolution again.
- [John] Edoardo Zaffuto is one
of the founders of a
grass-roots anti-Mafia group.
Addio Pizzo, or Farewell Extortion,
encourages ordinary Sicilians to come out
and defy the Mafia.
Cosa Nostra works like a shadow state,
using extortion as its tax.
(shouting in foreign language)
- Sometimes here, the Mafia ask
just 10, 15, euros per month
that's a nominal payment.
It's important for the Mafia that here
and at the fish shop, as
well as the vegetable shop
they accept to pay protection money.
- So how many people do you think
actually pay protection money
in this market, for example?
- 80% of a--
- 80%!
- Yes (speaks in foreign language).
- [John] Just round the
corner from the market
is a shop selling
traditional Sicilian caps.
- When we started our campaign
we started to distribute
these stickers to the shopkeepers that are
member of our campaign.
The stickers say, I pay who does not pay.
So in a sense, I support
those who say no to the Mafia.
- It works like a sort of
a beware to the dog sign,
you know, so it says,
as soon as you will dare
to ask pizzo here, you will be immediately
reported to the police.
And the consumers they know for sure
just seeing this sticker
that in this shop,
not a single cent goes to the Mafia.
- [John] 800 businesses have joined
Addio Pizzo's anti-extortion campaign.
In the huge task of
eradicating the Mafia scourge,
this is a small start, but the
potential is revolutionary.
Back in Calabria, the anti-Mafia fight
is a generation behind.
In fact, as the state focused on Sicily,
the 'Ndrangheta grew unchecked.
- [Translator] While
Cosa Nostra was committed
to its strategy of terror,
the 'Ndrangheta made a
completely different choice.
- [Translator] They were not interested
in a war against the state.
They bought the state.
Piece by piece.
They seeped into it.
They didn't need to fight it.
- [Translator] 'Ndrangheta
remained in the shadows,
and in the shadows it grew in
strength, power, organisation.
And above all, in wealth.
- [John] The Calabrian
Mafia thrived on neglect,
unknown to the world.
Even most Italians struggle
to pronounce its name.
Until one night in 2007.
On the 15th August, a
frantic call was received
in a small village in Calabria.
(speaking in foreign language)
A distraught caller asked for the Mamma,
(speaking in foreign language)
codename for a notorious 'Ndrangheta boss.
(speaking in foreign language)
(phone beeping)
This dramatic call was
not made from Calabria.
Not even from Italy.
It came from 1,000 miles away.
(suspenseful music)
From the German city of Duisburg.
(suspenseful music)
- [Translator] They'd likely never seen
anything like this in Germany.
At the scene, there were two cars.
Bodies splayed out,
the acrid smell of cordite
that we are so used to here.
Blood running on the street.
This is a German street.
Clean, orderly, it's not
the woods of Aspromonte.
- [John] Six men were murdered that night.
In the pocket of one of the victims,
baffled German police found
a mysterious charred image.
- [Translator] Looking inside
the pockets of those boys,
they found an image of
Saint Michael the Archangel,
with a burnt hole in the centre.
That's what's used in
the initiation ceremony
for young 'Ndrangheta members.
That was the business
card of the 'Ndrangheta.
(suspenseful music)
- [John] The dead men
were Calabrian gangsters
investing their criminal profits
in German hotels and restaurants.
But their murders were the result of
a bloody feud back in Calabria.
- [Translator] For the world
it was like a slap in the face.
What on earth is happening?
Where do these people come from?
Who are they?
What is the 'Ndrangheta?
- [John] The killings stunned
the Italian state into action.
Seasoned anti-Mafia investigators
were recruited to lead a crackdown.
- [Translator] The
Duisburg incident revealed
how dangerous 'Ndrangheta was.
And that made the state realise even more
that it needed to act
strongly and decisively.
And so it did.
Within months, police rounded up the
foot soldiers of the feuding clans.
(speaking in foreign language)
But a key boss remained at large,
the ruthless, violent
man nicknamed, the Mamma.
(suspenseful music)
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Translator] When
listening to the phone tabs,
we heard reference to the Mamma.
We knew it was their
codename for Antonio Pelle.
That's what he was known as.
- [John] But the hunt for Antonio Pelle
was to demonstrate just what
investigators were up against.
In Calabria, fugitive bosses usually hide
within their own communities,
protected by a wall of silence.
It was more than a year
before a heavily armed squad
swooped on a deserted warehouse
just outside Pelle's home town.
- [Translator] Nothing
suggested there might be
a bunker or anything like that,
Until we noticed something
about part of the floor
that made us suspicious.
(sledgehammer banging)
Suddenly we see this platform
coming up from the floor.
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Translator] And then we hear
the fugitive's voice from below.
- [Translator] Antonio Pelle.
- [John] Below the hydraulic lift,
police found a fully
furnished living space.
(ominous music)
- [Translator] The bunker was
perfectly organised, like a flat.
It was one of the most sophisticated
ever found in Calabria.
He even had a greenhouse to grow cannabis.
So his hobby, too, was taken care of.
- The capture of Antonio
Pelle was a major coup.
But when, two years later,
he mysteriously managed
to escape from custody,
it became clear just
how fragile any victory
against the 'Ndrangheta can be.
(ominous music)
(ominous music)
Scouring the mountainsides for
fugitive bosses is important.
But to really attack the 'Ndrangheta,
investigators needed to
penetrate the deepest
secrets of its structure.
In 2009, they made a
historic breakthrough.
It came in a secluded valley at Polsi,
home to one of the
oldest shrines in Italy.
(bell ringing)
The Madonna of Polsi.
An object of religious
veneration for centuries,
a whole host of miracles have been
attributed to this statue.
Every year, a smaller wooden copy
gets carried around the
sanctuary here in procession,
while women bellow ancient hymns
and the crowd shouts, "Viva, Maria".
This is one of the holiest
places in Southern Italy,
but it's also a place with
a very sinister history.
(celebrator music)
(people chattering)
Thousands of believers come
to this shrine every summer.
It was long suspected that Mafiosi
used the pilgrimage as
cover, but for what?
Then, in 2009, undercover agents spotted
a very different kind of pilgrim.
It's just about here on
2nd of September, 2009,
that some of the top bosses in the
'Ndrangheta was standing in a circle,
as 'Ndrangheta tradition dictates,
having their secret meeting.
Little did they know that the
Carabinieri were filming them.
The men spoke in a quasi-religious code.
- [Translator] The scene
we witnessed in Polsi
harks back to ancient
rituals and mysticism.
But really it has little
to do with religion
and more to do with crime.
- [John] Investigators had filmed a scene
that surpassed Hollywood fiction.
The highest body of the 'Ndrangheta.
In full session.
- [John] This previously unknown
ruling council had a name.
Il Crimine, the crime.
- [Translator] The
'Ndrangheta was believed to be
a family-based organisation,
with lots of families.
Some more, some less organised,
clashing with each
other, making alliances.
Instead, a new structure emerged.
Hierarchical and pyramid-like.
Similar to the Sicilian Mafia.
With a provincial executive
deciding the criminal strategy.
Not only here in Reggio
Calabria, but also in Italy,
Europe and around the world.
- [John] What months of
investigation revealed
was a global Mafia federation,
with an annual turnover
estimated at 44 billion euros.
If accurate, that figure
would be the equivalent
of 3% of Italy's entire economic output.
(propellor whirling)
(heart beating)
The state offensive also revealed
the extraordinary lengths
that 'Ndrangheta bosses will
go to protect their power.
To evade capture and continue to operate,
they've built hundreds of bunkers.
(suspenseful music)
Many are ingeniously
concealed beneath water tanks.
Behind radiators.
Wine racks.
Or apparently solid walls.
The elite unit known as the Cacciatore,
or hunters, were keen to show me
one of their particular favourites.
- And this has never cooked a
single margarita in its life.
And that was one of the clues
that told the Cacciatore
that there was something fishy
about this particular oven.
(suspenseful music)
A door inside the oven
slides back on tracks,
revealing a 30-meter corridor
dug deep into the
hillside behind the house.
Holy moley.
This was once a rather nice bedroom suite
complete with mirrors, stereo, TV,
bedroom furniture, heater.
This was clearly a perfectly decent
living space once upon a time.
So we've come through the
pizza oven down the tunnel,
through the bedroom, into the bathroom
and there's another secret entrance here
leading, who knows where.
Here there are tunnels,
leading to bunkers,
leading to more tunnels,
leading to more bunkers.
There's a kind of madness at work here.
(suspenseful music)
The 'Ndrangheta has also dug itself
deep into Calabrian society.
And to do that, it draws on more
than just violence and intimidation.
Bribery, corruption
and political patronage
have won some key players over
to the 'Ndrangheta's side.
- [Translator] Unfortunately
the characteristic
of the 'Ndrangheta is that
it's not only a criminal power,
it also penetrates all layers
of social and professional life.
- [Translator] It's the
collusion with politics,
institutions and the business world,
that's what strengthens the organisation.
- [Translator] Power to buy people,
power to offer someone a job,
power to buy an official,
a magistrate, a police officer.
This is what money does.
- [John] Calabria's institutions
have been profoundly infiltrated.
In 2012, the city council
of Reggio Calabria
was suspended by Italy's
national government.
The reason?
Links to organised crime.
The rise of the Pesce clan
and its young boss, Ciccio,
is a typical tale of Mafia power.
- [Translator] Since we
were kids, we've been taught
that every man has his price.
Ciccio Pesce was like the mayor.
- [John] By 2010, investigators
had amassed enough evidence
to put Ciccio Pesce on trial,
and raided his hilltop mansion.
Here, too, they found a bunker.
But of the boss himself, hardly any trace.
It was evidence that the gangsters
hold the real power in the region.
- [Translator] If we
don't catch a fugitive
it is because the state has failed.
And people can't quite
comprehend why some fugitives
can be on the run for so long.
- [John] Catching Ciccio Pesce
became an absolute priority.
A special Carabinieri team began looking
for a lead, and for a bunker.
They concentrated on what they knew
Ciccio Pesce could not live without.
- [Translator] Football
and beautiful women,
it was difficult for him to bring a
football pitch inside a bunker,
but a woman would
definitely have been easier.
And so we concentrated on
one woman in particular.
(energetic music)
(speaks in foreign language)
This girl was different
from all the others,
because she had a lifestyle
that didn't match her means.
So the boyfriend must have been
rich, but we didn't see one.
She took too much care of
herself to be a single woman.
We studied her habits, we began
to follow her day and night.
- [John] For months,
surveillance was trained
on Ciccio Pesce's suspected mistress.
Until one day, there was a breakthrough.
A car turned up outside the woman's house.
- [Translator] We recognised the driver,
he was the armourer of the Pesce clan,
a man in contact with Ciccio Pesce.
- [John] The investigators
thought this man
could be carrying messages
between Pesce and his mistress.
They tracked him to an
isolated scrap yard,
a couple of miles outside Rosarno.
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Translator] Surveillance
was difficult in this area,
because there was no cover.
It was impossible to go right up there
and get a close look without being seen.
This was a big problem for us.
- Faced with such
difficulties on the ground,
those hunting the 'Ndrangheta bosses
can now call on help from above.
(sombre music)
These observation windows
are absolutely amazing,
you can stick your head literally
out of the fuselage of the
aircraft and look straight down.
The Italian Government
has invested millions
in state-of-the-art spy
planes like this one.
- We're at something like
2,500 feet at the moment
and when they do these
extraordinary zooms,
they tell me that even from
several kilometres away,
they can identify the
number plate on a car.
- [John] Investigators
were trawling through
all conceivable evidence
about the scrap yard,
suspected of being Pesce's lair.
(suspenseful music)
- [Translator] And so we began to get
hold of satellite images of
the previous two year period.
We were looking to identify
structural changes made to the area.
And then we got lucky.
The presence of a bulldozer,
wooden boards to spread mortar,
heaps of cement mix,
sand, the cement mixer.
- [John] The photo showed
that six months earlier,
builders had been at work,
but there was no evidence
of any new buildings.
At least not above ground.
(suspenseful music)
- [John] In fact, as
the Carabinieri entered
and searched every inch of the compound,
secret cameras were trained on them.
The owner of the compound finally appeared
and reluctantly led Lumia and
his men to a chicken coup.
- [John] A few moments
later, the trapdoor opens.
- [Translator] He comes out
and he's white, like a corpse.
He's lost 15 kilos.
But we had recognised his voice
when he'd shouted from the tomb
in which he'd buried himself for months.
We'd got him.
- [John] The hunt for one of Italy's
most dangerous men was over.
(ominous music)
- [John] The bunker had been
Pesce's command centre for months.
Through a dozen CCTV cameras,
he watched his hunters closing in.
That gave him just enough time to
destroy any incriminating evidence.
(speaks in foreign language)
(ominous music)
- [John] Pesce has begun
a 20 year prison sentence.
Now the Italian state is putting
64 alleged members of his clan on trial.
Ironically, they're being tried in a
so called bunker courtroom,
bomb-proof and several metres underground.
(speaks in foreign language)
This is one of the first major trials
against the 'Ndrangheta since its
secret structure was revealed.
The state is trying to show that it
can fight the Mafia and win.
The stakes are high
and not only for Italy.
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Translator] 'Ndrangheta
clones its own criminal structure
multiplies it and plants
itself in new territories.
In Canada, Australia,
Switzerland, Germany.
(speaks in foreign language)
There is no bit of
territory, no social category
which is immune from the
possibility of contagion
by the 'Ndrangheta, by the Mafia.
There isn't any.
(speaks in foreign language)
- [John] But even the vast resources
being poured into the fight
against the 'Ndrangheta
can only begin to tackle the problem.
- [Translator] We can
arrest 100, 200, 300,
but there will always be offspring
ready to take the reins of the clan.
Until Calabrian society stops
shaking the hand of the Mafioso,
pretending not to know he is a Mafioso.
Until that happens, there's no
chance of uprooting the weed.
(peaceful music)
- [Translator] The battle
in Calabria is still tough.
It's still difficult.
In Sicily, it took years
of fighting to get results.
Public opinion, the people must be
reassured the state is strong.
Credible and in charge.
In Calabria, the road is still long.
- [John] It's more than 10 years
since businessman Gaetano
Saffioti took his brave stand
and defied the 'Ndrangheta.
He is still a pariah
and a prisoner in his own community.
- [Translator] Here we
are in a kind of bunker.
It's the price you have to pay.
I pay this willingly for
what I set out to achieve.
But only when there are many of us,
then I'll be able to call
myself completely free.
Free to walk around like everyone else,
to go for a ride on my bike.
To go to the beach, to
watch the sea and swim.
All these things that normal people do,
but I'm prevented from doing.
Sooner or later, it will happen.
We need more time, but it will happen.
I'm sure of it.
(ominous music)
- What I've seen in Calabria
are scenes from a war,
a war that the rest of the world
doesn't even know is going on.
The tragedy of this land
is that it took so long
for the Italian state to
begin a serious fight back.
But having seen what I've
seen on this journey,
I have a hope, a belief,
that the tide of history
has finally begun to turn.
(peaceful music)
