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A
This is Australian True Crime International with Michelle Laurie. In 2006, Dutch woman Sanne Deboer had a small financial windfall and became one of those people we read about who bought an incredibly cheap rundown house in a picturesque village in Italy's Calabria region. She was aware of the region's reputation as a Mafia stronghold, but found it hard to believe her sweet neighbours could be involved in anything like that. Eventually, though, Sanne began to realise that the very fabric of everyday life in her vill controlled by a strict code enforced by the Drangira, one of the most powerful crime organisations in the world. Sunny has written a book about her observations and experiences. It's called the New Mafia and she joins us to talk about it. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation and a warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
B
Life is full of distractions, like this clarinet solo. But you don't have to put up with distractions in your photos. With distraction removal, Adobe Photoshop can automatically delete unwanted elements like wires and people. We're working on the clarinet. Try it@photoshop.com I was invited by an author to help them write their book. So I was working there actually as an editor. I had never been in the south of Italy. I was immediately I fell in love with the natural beauty of the place. I was living on this beautiful hilltop village by the sea. The people in the village was super welcoming to me. It was just. I had never expected to want to stay there after finishing that book, but I couldn't help.
A
Feels like you turned a dream into reality. You turned something that seems like a ridiculous fairy tale into reality. You're actually doing it.
B
Maybe I had an idea that it would teach me a lot about the world as well, but I, of course I couldn't know at that point.
A
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it is important to note that you were an editor, you were working in. In for a publisher, right? So you weren't working as a journalist, you didn't move there to write a book about this.
B
I certainly didn't move there to investigate the Mafia.
A
That's what's so great about it, because initially it really is. It's a story about someone who, who moves into this environment and I guess maybe like a lot of us, back of your mind, you're aware that or you've heard the term Calabrian Mafia. Maybe there's some movies about it. But when you got there, you write in the book that you just sort of thought, oh, as if my beautiful, sweet neighbors. You know, these people are so lovely, they're so good. I can't see any evidence of anything nefarious around here.
B
Right, that's. That's right. And. And of course, it took a. A while also for me to kind of get to understand a little bit more about the local mafia clans, because it's understandable that people wouldn't be very ready to speak about it with me. Also another factor was my Italian was still very basic. So I. It took me quite some years to, you know, to be able to read the papers and to be able to, you know, eventually start reporting about on the subject and to go and, you know, speak to all kinds of people about it.
A
I've been telling people about the book and the story I always relay to them is one night you heard a car explosion and everyone went out on the street and you realised that it belonged to a lady who worked at the council who gave out building permits. And eventually you realised she mustn't have given a permit to someone who wanted one. But significantly, the police never came, the fire brigade never came.
B
She never even called them.
A
Right.
B
It was in the middle of the night. It was such a shocking event. Everybody came out of their houses. Everybody was also very supportive of that family that was obviously heartbroken and shocked and very much afraid of what this would mean. But it was very significant that I realized nobody was calling the police. She never filed a police report. Everybody helped to put out the fire and eventually she quit her job and she moved away sadly enough as well.
A
So. So it's a very telling moment that everybody else understands what's happening and you still didn't really get it.
B
I was trying to be as discreet as possible and still get some information, but I realized the complexity of this all and the great emotional impact that this criminal presence had on regular people. And I think that was probably also a very important factor in me wanting to investigate eventually, because actually, I'm not very much of a true crime reader, or I wasn't even so much into the subject, but living Calabria, realizing how normal criminal power looks and how sophisticated just infiltrates into society. Also in the Netherlands, which was another important factor that made me want to get to know more about this was just eye opening to me and it really helped me fuel all these years of research and, you know, writing.
A
It's kind of a perfect storm, really, for you, of all people, to go and live There to happen, to live there and then be surrounded by it and realize it. And you have the talent and the ability to tell the story to the rest of us in this really wonderful way. The Drangita also has quite a presence here in Australia and has done for a very long time. And as you mentioned, it does in Holland, it does all over Europe, America. So it is a great balance. I know a lot of people have said this. It's a great balance between kind of travelogue, diary and discussion about one of the biggest organized crime networks in the. In the world, and I think responsible for most of the cocaine movement around the world. Is that fair?
B
That is what Italian law enforcement has said for many years. Early 2000s, up until maybe 10 years ago, they were definitely a very large factor in the cocaine smuggling all over the world.
A
And ecstasy was our. I'm sure you've read about that at the time was the biggest ecstasy hall in the world. That happened here in Melbourne.
B
A couple of probably Australian Dutch connection as well there, because it's in Holland, it's in southern Holland and Belgium that most of the world's ecstasy is produced. So it was very probably produced in the Netherlands, then brought to Italy and transported to Australia and put in cans.
A
Remember, put in cans that look like tomato. Crushed tomatoes.
B
Tomato cans. Yes.
A
Amazing.
B
Yeah. 50 million ecstasy pills.
A
An amazing story. So is that their main industry, still drugs, narcotics?
B
Yes, I believe it's their largest in, let's say, part of their income. They do, of course, also make a lot of money from just public contracts and some extortion. Not always extortion, as in asking for protection money directly, but often also forcing people to buy products that are really highly priced.
A
Because we know that's the formula, right? That's the mafia formula, is to open legitimate businesses for many reasons, to gain control of other sectors of the economy, legitimate sectors. So all those things go on in all of the countries that they're in.
B
Yeah, yeah. Definitely in our country is a lot of investments in hospitality sector, but it could be anything. And I believe also in Australia, there's, of course, the construction sector, the agriculture. Many, many areas.
A
Are there other criminal groups encroaching on this, on these industries? In Australia at the moment, we have Middle Eastern gangs, I think, are really running the joint these days. And so I wonder if they. Do you think they do they work together? Do they. Do they end up fighting over things?
B
What we've seen in investigations usually is that Ndrangheta clans collaborate with other more violent criminal groups in all These territories. So that what they actually do is that they come away with. They get away with it, basically, because the more violent criminal groups get targeted by law enforcement and they. Yes. And that's what was brought to light by Operation Ironside in Australia. And was it 2022 that the motorcycle. The outlaw motorcycle gangs were actually collaborating with the Drangheta in the drug smuggling?
A
You're reminding me of something someone told me recently, was that the Drangheta these days are almost work as consultants, almost sort of at the very highest level of putting people together, but not getting their hands dirty.
B
Prime as a service, they call it this, I believe. Yeah, yeah. So when these criminal groups get a chance to sort of evolve and this is what happens. This, this. Their exploitation is not just of regular citizens, but it's also of other crime groups.
A
Yeah, it's very corporate almost, isn't it?
B
Absolutely.
A
What, though, is the difference? I learned from your book, the difference between the Drangheta and the Cosa Nostra? Arguably, the Cosa Nostra is the kind of Mafia we're more familiar with. Because that's the one the movies are made about, right?
B
Exactly. I think this is probably true for all over the world. Definitely. Here in Europe, we are aware of the Italian Mafia, for us is something of a little bit of the past. We think of the American movies that are made about it. So that's even the American Cosa Nostra, you could say. Quite a romantic kind of image. And also, yeah, I would say at least an Italian problem or a problem that is a little bit of the past. And the main difference is that that's only around that time is exactly the Dranguta, like in the 90s, what they also became known for was their horrible bomb attacks and killings of many state figures. That had a great impact on Italy, of course, and that created a reaction of the state. They became law enforcement, really targeted the Sicilian clans. And the Dangata took advantage of that. And they had been clever enough to stay under the radar to not really engage openly in such killings. And they took over the cocaine business basically from the Sicilian clans and were very smart about keeping a lower profile. They became very big in the cocaine smuggling into Europe. The Netherlands was a big part of that. We have a lot of ports that allow this cocaine, have allowed the cocaine to enter, in a sense, into Europe. So that was their success story, in a sense. Yeah.
A
So the Cosa Nostra is out of Sicily and the Drangheta is out of Calabria. It feels. I felt. I got the impression from reading your book of the Cosa Nostra being kind of quite flashy and flamboyant and you know, police, law enforcement often talk about, in Australia and in the States about local members being quite obsessed with those movies about, you know, in the 90s when they'd raid a house, there would be all the videos and DVDs of the Godfather movies and the Scarfaces and all the gangster and the Sopranos. But it's. So I walked away from Mafiopoli thinking, I think the Trangetta's more serious. Just, just as a way of saying they're just kind of, they're just really more serious, which is hard to imagine.
B
Yeah, I could, you could say more serious. More. They're very strategic in that sense. They really found out the sneakiest way to be, I guess, to be a mafia.
A
But they're more serious with their rules too, aren't they? Like you, you absolutely need to be Calabrian to, to be a member. You need to be family. That's known.
B
There's a lot of rules, there's a lot of strict rules. They're especially cruel to their members. A lot of the membership, well, the membership in principle is passed on from father to son. So it's all these men in families. Then you can. There are arranged marriages between women in the clans with other clans that they might want to collaborate with or they might have to sort of have a peace offering with after a feud. So it's a very family based, which helps them of course, to keep all the criminal information safe and sound within the family walls.
A
Cause you make the point, you make the point too that then if somebody is arrested for a crime, not only do they, you know, are we hoping that they'll be loyal to the Drangheta, to the larger organisation, but they, they have to be thinking about loyalty to their family, to their father, to their uncle, to their grandfather, to their lineage, to. So these strong, strong family ties are.
B
Yes.
A
Important for that reason.
B
Right.
A
For loyalty.
B
They're very important and for that. This is also the reason why for a long time there were hardly any state witnesses who were former members and turned to speak to the police. Because there is an actual rule in, in the dangata that tells people to, if they do such a thing, they will be killed by their nearest family members.
A
Oh, that's right.
B
By their father or their brother. So it's really. And this happens, it really is executed that way. So that's such a, it's such a suffocating cruelty. These rules are so Extremely cruel and extremely binding in that sense that it's quite understandable for somebody to be born in such a family to almost feel that there's no way out. But of course, we also have to realize that this is that very archaic, very, very, almost unhuman idea of these families, the way they've originated and the way they've operated for over 160 years now. But at the same time, we must realize that in our societies we are maybe exposed, or not even consciously exposed to people that are part of these families, but they are very successful entrepreneurs, but still are influenced by these family and by these expectations of their families.
A
Yeah. You told the story of the man who did actually leave the Dhrangheta, he and his family, and he talked about his own father trying to kill him three times. And this is a man who loved his father very much. Very close family, but that's the rule. Your family is expected to deal with you.
B
Absolutely. I still. I'm still in touch with him. Thank God he's doing fine and his family's all right. But it's been a really tough fight for him. And he's also felt for many years very unsafe in the protection, how do you call it, program for witnesses. Because of course, if the Dangata has so much power, is so well integrated in society, they also have their people in these institutions and they know how to get you, even if they. If you are supposedly protected.
A
Plus, we know that his family's suffering. We know that. And he knows that his family's suffering, that he has brought shame on the family and all of those things. I had to go and watch. After I'd read the book, I started thinking immediately about the miniseries that was made called Trust, about the J. Paul Getty Jr. Abduction. Have you seen that?
B
I haven't seen that, but I know about the.
A
You know the story, obviously. Yeah, well, so I wanted to ask you, you know, is it true? Like, let's kind of unpack that a little bit. Because even when you talk about the drug business, the cocaine business, that the crucial aspect of that is the port that was buil in Calabria right Now, according to legend, the port was built with the money that the dranketter made from the. From the kidnapping. From kidnapping the grandson of the richest man in the world at the time, in the 70s. So what is true about that?
B
Obviously, a lot of the money was made in those kidnappings. In the 70s, 80s and 90s, there were very cruel kidnappings of these children of rich families, often from the north or of Italy. So we have all these horror stories, and the drunken really made a lot of money from those. So they had this capital to start with and, in fact, do a lot of things with. But the port was also built with public money. It was also a really. Yeah, so. So there. There's. It's parts, probably both parts, and. And for sure, there was a lot of subsidies that went into it as well. It was difficult, in a sense, writing the book, because I really wanted to demythologize.
A
Yes.
B
These piece. These figures and. And not help them build a sort of iconic image of themselves, which they're already so good at the same time, and help present them also to make people aware of the actual threat they could be posing. But to keep that imbalance.
A
Yeah, absolutely. Another factor of that story, of. Part of the mythology of that kidnapping story, is that the Ndrangheta were sort of struggling at that time, that they were struggling financially, that the Cosa Nostra. And I think even the suggestion is that the movies were part of it. There was a jealousy about the Cosa Nostra appearing to be really successful, the Sicilians, and that. That people viewed the Calabrians as goat herders and not doing very well. Is that true?
B
I mean, for sure, probably the idea is to have as much profit as possible, of course. But it's been very helpful for the Nangata. And I think the smartest people in the organization have been aware of the fact that it's very useful for them to appear poor. I mean, that's part of their image and part of the way they present themselves. We've had an investigation here in Holland where we've had some clans investing in restaurants. And there was some conversations that the police overheard about. I think it was a nephew of this restaurant owner coming over, and he was sort of beginning to dress a little bit with more fancy clothes. And it's like, no, you cannot do that over here. We don't want to attract attention from the police. It's really part of their modus operandi. It's much part of the way they infiltrate societies and exploit the weaknesses because they know if they look like gangsters, that will attract some suspicion.
A
Yes. You're reminding me of the Australian connection, the town of Griffith in New South Wales that has long been associated with the Drangitta. And the allegation is that people who present themselves as farmers, as immigrants, who have come over here with nothing, and they're farming fruit and vegetables, are actually deeply involved with this network.
B
Yeah. So that could be. Of course, I also want to make the point, I think it's important to make the point that we have to be super careful not to stigmatize Italian communities in Australia. Collabing communities, that would be such a shame and unfair to them. It's a very tricky territory, isn't it?
A
Because Australia has a massive Italian diaspora. So yes. And I think for a long time though, it is tricky because it also makes you sort of, I think, too secure sometimes and makes you imagine that it's silly to think that we could have drengetter in Australia. It seems like we're so far away. What would they be interested in here?
B
Absolutely.
A
So you're right, it is tricky. It's a fine line.
B
And I can so relate because, I mean, not so much Holland. We have a lot of Italian people in Amsterdam, but especially Germany, which is of course our neighboring country. It's the most country in Europe outside of Italy. For the Drangheta, it's actually the biggest Korean organization In Germany as well, a lot of them are based right over the border with the Netherlands. And also there people have there been a huge massacre. I speak about it in a book in 2007 where six people were killed right in front of a restaurant in the largest office building in Duisburg. But still I still I do. I visit Germany sometimes. My book has been translated into Germany as well. And I still find people over there that are just so shocked and so they're in disbelief. And despite a lot of even mass arrests happening in Germany, it's so difficult for people to recognize the fact that these very normal, very integrated, very successful people have been maybe even they were born in. They have maybe have got Italian roots. They're actually part of this very strange archaic organization called Ndrangheta. And also what I want to say about that, of course what we need to realize is that these criminal groups, they would not stand a chance if they did not know how to make use of people in our own communities. Facilitators that are ready to help them, notaries, lawyers, accountants, even civil servants, administrators. More and more stories are coming out also in the Netherlands, where we find out that the Ndrangheta clans in our countries have great access into our institutions and in a sense also to organize their own impunity.
A
And politicians, of course. We have had one political assassination in Australia and that was linked to the Ndrangheta. It was a man called Donald McKay, whose remains have never been found. And he went missing in the 70s and he was a campaigner against organised crime in that Griffith area of New South Wales. But since then, we've also had politicians who have been accused of having links to organised crime.
B
Right. Victoria's opposition leader Matthew Guy denies his restaurant meeting with an alleged Mafia boss was about funnelling donations to the Liberal Party. He says he knows nothing about secret phone recordings suggesting otherwise. The recordings reveal that after the dinner, a Liberal Party official discussed splitting donations from Tony McDaffery and his family into party coffers.
A
And again, I think we don't take that stuff very seriously here in Australia. It seems like a bit of a sideshow, a political sideshow sometimes, and something out of the movies. But you talk in the book about so many, just really day by day, little thing, you know, you are restoring a house, so you're dealing with tradespeople, tradies, we call them in Australia. And even the way you talk about that, like the way everyone's linked in that profession, how important it is that you. You know, if you choose one guy, you're kind of choosing his whole family and how political that can get.
B
That also could be a little bit of part of the culture in Calabria. I mean, it's very important. Small communities, everybody knows each other, everybody's struggling for work, so they all want to help each other out. So I feel that in a way, that is also my view as a sort of a privileged outsider who was born in the Netherlands and was so unfamiliar to me, to live in such a small community where there's a lot of unemployment and I wasn't aware of my power in that moment, even to. Yeah, as a young woman, to renovate my house. You know, I mean, small, old house, but still. But that's exactly what is sometimes so difficult. There are some cultural aspects that are very well manipulated by the Ndrangheta, or there are, let's say, aggravated into a criminal kind of conduct.
A
Yeah, see, I just crossed the line myself, and I wasn't even there. I crossed the line and suddenly I was seeing them everywhere. I was thinking, oh, no, the Dranguta's trying to renovate your house. And I go from disbelieving that they're really there at all to suddenly seeing them everywhere. Did you sort of oscillate between those two when you're living there?
B
Yes, that's very relatable. I've had that happen to me for quite some time. Fortunately, I grew over that, because that's definitely not the way to live. It's very. But. But I do believe. Okay, can I tell you a story of what happened to me? It's not in the book, but it's something I still think about often. The first time I went back from Colabia to. I flew back from Colabia to Amsterdam, seated next to a man, a very friendly old man, and he asked me, did you like it in Calabria? And I was like, I had such basic Italian sales, like, oh, yeah, Calabria, bellissima. And he said, oh, yes, it is beautiful. And, you know, we have the best fruit and we have the cleanest air. And what you learn in Calabria is which fruit you want to eat and which fruit you might want to leave aside. And that is something I never forget. And over the years, I've learned that in a society like Calabria, where the organized crime is so deeply ingrained into every. It could very well be part of any legal business you encounter, it becomes also a little bit of our responsibility to try at least to see which products, which networks, which opportunities are connected to these sort of systems of exploitation, of corruption, of silence, and which are not. And it's very often very difficult for us as consumers to do so. But it's a responsibility, I think, and that all of us are aware of in the world right now.
A
Yeah, absolutely. And you're right when you put it that way. It is a responsibility we all have in different ways, in different levels, different organizations.
B
Yes, but of course, you cannot help. You cannot make yourself go crazy and think with everything. But there is information. I mean, I'm trying to. With the book, what I've tried to do is help people. Yeah, just open their mind a little bit and see which information they can find. We can find out certain things about our environment, and that makes us smarter in our choices and awareness.
A
Yes. Because we do choose to ignore things. Sometimes I think we're all guilty of that. I know I'm not the only person wondering how safe you are and how safe you have felt in writing this book in the. You know, you still live part time in Calabria. And so it is an interesting dichotomy that on one hand, you're researching, learning more about it and wanting to share it, but at the same time, what you're sharing is information about a brutal organization that doesn't hesitate to kill enemies.
B
That is right. When the book came out, I admit that I was a little bit nervous. I'm the first foreign journalist to be based in Calabria and write about the subject. And in that sense, it felt a little bit like an experiment. Secondly, what kind of a threat am I to them? I'm only speaking about things, really, that are. I mean, of Course, I spoke to a lot of people, I was informed, I got interesting information, but it was always based on cases that were already known to the police, that were either going through trial or had already been established as cases that actually happened. So I'm not uncovering anything new, and I'm just presenting the story to people so that they can be made aware of it. At the same time, the drunken clans have such a beautiful situation laid out for them. There's nothing that I can do, you know, to jeopardize that at all.
A
Yeah, I guess I hadn't thought of it that way. I mean, I was thinking about the fact that omerta, the secrecy, is so important to them. And again, it seems as though they take that much more seriously than the COs in Austria do.
B
You're absolutely right. And I must add, maybe, that an important decision that I've made while writing the book, and that was also because friends and colleagues had told me, really, do not do this. So I speak about all these cases openly. I name names, I name places. But I am aware, of course, when I'm back in Calabria, in my village, that it becomes very personal and it becomes a very sensitive subject, not just to people related to the clans, who I'm pretty much aware of, who their families are, but also to their neighbors. It's such a sensitive subject. It's such a complicated subject. And I was in a. I was stupid enough, you could say, as a foreigner, to put my nose into that and to even talk about this. Not, of course, with the intention to expose them or to shame Calabrian, the opposite. I wanted to tell the stories of resilience in the net. I wanted to tell how courageous people were in Calabrian to even deal with this situation and speak out about it. I did decide, however, not to name the people in my village, not to name the name of my village also, because I don't want to stigmatize it as a. You know, it's just a regular village. It's a beautiful village with lovely people, and it has a small, tiny minority of criminals that are complicating matters. But it was no use, and it might have been. I think it probably was a smart move, and it helps me feel a little bit safer and less, but. And I hardly ever speak about my work anyway when I'm there.
A
You must have built strong relationships before you published this book, because even just as an outsider, coming into a community and appearing to criticize it could have been really difficult. But it's. I mean, And I don't Think you do that? I think that if anything, you kind of make it feel like people are trapped in this. In this cycle.
B
So the idea is probably if you. If I would say in my village, yeah, I'm a journalist, I write about the Dangheta, people would probably also. Yeah. Hate me for that. But it's not necessarily because they are on the side of the Ndrangheta, but it's more about this sense of extracting also a very sad and sad story from their territory. And, you know, it's amazing to me that book has been translated now, and it's even resonating on the other side of the world, as you tell me, Michelle, and I'm really honored to be a guest on your podcast, but I'm still a freelance journalist that doesn't make a whole lot of money. And so. But this. But the idea could be that I'm making a lot of money from this subject in my country. And I'm just sort of. The idea is really for me to tell people how beautiful calabri is, that there's a world out there that that will teach them about their own countries in a different. In a new way. And the best compliment I get when, after people read the book is when they tell me, I've read your book. I'm now going on holiday in Calabria. I really want to see that beautiful place.
A
Absolutely. I mean, when you talk about. I've never been Italy. I've never been to Italy. And so you talk about seeing the ocean from your house, you know, and. Yeah, it's. It's every fantasy I've ever had about Italy. It's. It's beautiful. And. And your affection for your neighbors, for the individuals, is. Is very clear. And I think probably that too, is how you've gotten away with it, to put it crassley, like, because it's clear that you, as I said, you didn't move there to write a book. You didn't, you know, this is. These are your observations as a human who has great affection for the area and for the people.
B
I hope that the message of the book, definitely not to stigmatize Calabrian people. Definitely not to also believe that all we have to do is now put all these criminals behind bars, because that's already happening, most part in Italy, and it's not resolving the problem. I mean, there's less people being killed in Italy. There's a lot of people in jail, but when they come out, they just go back again because that's what is expected of them. So really, what we need to do is to. And I think I will focus more about that in my newer work is trying to find a more of a holistic approach to resolving these issues. And that might sound a little bit, well, I don't know, not so sexy and not so spectacular.
A
No, I'm all about it. I'm all about holistic. Yeah, we talk about that in Australia a lot, about things like youth crime and things like that, about the holistic approach to that. But I have to say you're talking about a situation that as you said, has been functioning, germinating for 160 plus years. It's so, so deeply entrenched. Where, where to begin?
B
Yes, but of course, of course you see this in communities in Calabria. Sometimes young people, they find a way to really get together and work on creating an alternative. They, they pay attention to what their village looks like, to supporting each other, to really creating an altern. Because of course, like we've talked about construction, often what happens is, and of course that's not the small construction company on the corner, but it's the larger ones that have, that can build the bridge for the municipality. They have so much power because they had people working for them. And in return, these people might vote for the candidate of their choice, of the rank, of the clan's choice. And that makes this whole thing going on as a perpetual mobili. So if you want to fight this, a lot of it has to do with creating a complete alternative for people to have security, to have support and a future that looks differently, that really is more sensitive to the needs of a whole community instead of a few people just trying to get really rich and powerful.
A
If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call lifeline on 131114 or contact 1-800-respect on 1-800-737732 or 1-800-respect. Org au indigenous australians can contact 13 yarn on 139276 or 13 yarn.orgau. The producers of this podcast recognize the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded.
B
They pay respect to the aboriginal elders
A
past, present and those emerging.
Australian True Crime – Shortcut: Living Among the Mafia – ATC International
Host: Bravecasting / Meshel Laurie
Guest: Sanne Deboer
Release Date: June 3, 2026
This episode of Australian True Crime International explores the subtle and pervasive power of the Calabria-based mafia, the Ndrangheta, through the personal experiences of Dutch writer and editor Sanne Deboer. After relocating to a small Italian village, Sanne unwittingly found herself living amid one of the world’s most powerful organized crime syndicates. Drawing from her investigative book, The New Mafia, she discusses with Meshel Laurie the everyday realities of life under mafia rule, the Ndrangheta’s global tentacles, and the complex interplay of family, business, and fear.
On coming to Calabria
“You turned something that seems like a ridiculous fairy tale into reality.” — Meshel Laurie [01:52]
On omertà and family loyalty
“There is an actual rule in the dangata that tells people to, if they do such a thing, they will be killed by their nearest family members.” — Sanne Deboer [13:15]
On myth and reality of mafia wealth
“It was difficult, in a sense, writing the book, because I really wanted to demythologize... and not help them build a sort of iconic image...” — Sanne Deboer [16:59]
Perspective on ethical responsibility
“What you learn in Calabria is which fruit you want to eat and which fruit you might want to leave aside.” — Sanne Deboer [25:17]
On solutions
“If you want to fight this, a lot of it has to do with creating a complete alternative...” — Sanne Deboer [33:10]
| Time | Topic | |-----------|--------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Introduction; Sanne moves to Calabria | | 02:18 | “I certainly didn’t move there to investigate the Mafia.” – Sanne | | 03:25 | Car bomb anecdote (realizing the mafia's presence) | | 05:28 | Discussion of the Ndrangheta’s global reach, especially in Australia | | 08:23 | “Ndrangheta clans collaborate…” – criminal collaboration insights | | 09:47 | Differences between Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra | | 12:15 | Family ties and the severity of loyalty rules | | 14:40 | Story of a defector hunted by his own father | | 17:48 | Mythology of mafia “poverty” and discretion | | 18:51 | Ndrangheta in Australian rural communities | | 21:54 | Mafia infiltration of politics and professions | | 23:15 | Social webs in small-town Calabria | | 25:17 | “Which fruit you want to eat and which fruit you might want to leave aside.” | | 28:09 | On personal safety and not being a threat | | 30:19 | Balancing critique and community affection | | 32:02 | On mass incarceration and needed reforms | | 33:10 | Community alternatives as the path forward |
The conversation is intimate and reflective, blending true-crime intrigue with cultural sensitivity and personal affection for Calabria. Sanne’s outsider observations provide a compelling lens, while Meshel’s probing questions balance skepticism with empathy.
For listeners new to the Ndrangheta’s shadowy world, this episode offers an accessible mix of personal story, investigative insight, and cultural context—bringing to light the invisible threads of organized crime woven through seemingly ordinary lives and landscapes.