The recent capture of one of Italy’s top mafia bosses in the Colombian city of Medellín highlights the growing ties between Latin America’s drug cartels and Italy’s notorious crime families.
After a three-year manhunt, 39-year old Domenico Trimboli was arrested in Medellín’s upscale Laureles neighborhood, where he had purportedly lived for three years with his partner and two children. Born in Argentina, Trimboli was the head of the ‘Ndrangheta –Italy’s richest and most powerful criminal organization– and was one of Europe’s 20 most wanted criminals.
If convicted on drug trafficking charges, Trimboli faces up to 12 years in prison once extradited back to Italy.
The ‘Ndrangheta capo “had a lot of money and this facilitated his peaceful stay in Colombia,” said Nicola Gratteri, an Italian prosecutor
in the Calabria region where the ‘Ndrangheta maintains its base of operations.
The ‘Nhdrangheta is an organized crime family similar to the Sicilian mafia and it is estimated that it earns between $30 billion and $50 billion annually, mostly from drug trafficking and pirated merchandise.
While not as infamous as the Cosa Nostra is in the United States, the ‘Ndrangheta – which operates through small, individual groups instead of the mafia’s pyramid structure – is arguably more important to Europe’s drug trade, as 80 percent of the cocaine entering the continent’s market comes through docks in Calabria, Italian officials estimated back in 2004.
The mafia is believed to have ties to both drug cartels in Colombia as well as with Mexico’s ultra-violent Zetas.
