True Crime Tonight: The New Mafia

Summary

Australian True Crime: True Crime Tonight – The New Mafia

Host: Michelle Laurie
Date: July 12, 2026
Episode Focus: Exploring the hidden reach of the Italian mafia in Australia, the impact of organized crime and coercive control, and survivor stories—with a focus on the ‘Ndrangheta (Calabrian Mafia) and personal transformation after incarceration.

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1. Episode Overview

This episode probes the extent and evolution of the Italian mafia—especially the ‘Ndrangheta—within Australian and global communities. Host Michelle Laurie, with producers Matthew and Ruby, recommend true crime resources, analyze the culture of organized crime, and speak with Pete Bates—a reformed prisoner and advocate—to highlight the repercussions of violence, the realities for victims, and the hope for change.

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2. Key Discussion Points & Insights

A. Listener Engagement and Recommendations

• Listener Hotline:
  • A listener recommends podcasts: “Escaping the Cross” by Glenn Owen Fisher and “The Chris Watts Tapes.”
  • The hosts encourage more listener voice messages and express the value of true crime community interaction.
• Book and Podcast Recommendations:
  • Discussion of Glenn Fisher’s insights into institutional child abuse, and the power of survivor testimony.
  • Review of recent and classic true crime podcasts focusing on infamous cases (Chris & Shanann Watts) with an emphasis on how bodycam and CCTV footage have changed storytelling in true crime.

B. The ‘Ndrangheta: The New Mafia (07:10 – 12:43)

• Book Discussion: “The New Mafia” by Sunny DeBoer
  • The ‘Ndrangheta is examined as a lesser-known but more disciplined and deeply entrenched mafia group than the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.
  • Memorable insight: Their discipline is so intense that being humiliated is considered worse than violence.
    • Quote: “If someone's late for a meeting, they might flush your head down the toilet...that's so humiliating that it's worse than being shot.” — Michelle Laurie [08:05]
  • The J. Paul Getty III Kidnapping:
    • The ‘Ndrangheta gained worldwide notoriety for this crime—highlighting their ruthlessness and business acumen.
    • The ransom was ultimately used to build a port in Calabria, becoming the world’s largest drug port, showcasing their integration into legitimate infrastructure and local government.
      • “Together, the Drangheta and the government built a port in Calabria, which became and continues to be the biggest drug port in the world.” — Michelle Laurie [10:34]
  • Life in mafia-run villages:
    • Anecdotes about the normalization of violence and retribution, such as car bombings in daily disputes.
    • Community complicity and silence illustrated by no police involvement after serious crimes.
      • “She never even called the police. This lady, that's crazy. That ingrained, it's that obvious.” — Michelle Laurie [11:43]
• Themes:
  • The mafia as a system embedded so deeply that residents, including newcomers, cannot escape its influence.
  • The normalization and visibility of criminal control in small communities.

C. Interview: Pete Bates – From Incarceration to Advocacy (12:59 – 20:35)

• Background:
  • Pete Bates describes his journey from an abusive childhood and criminal conviction (manslaughter) to becoming an anti-violence advocate.
  • He tells of his early environment: violence at home, drug abuse, and the resulting desire to inflict pain on others due to personal suffering.
    • “I remember being that little kid hoping that a man like me would come through that door and grab me and get me out of that house, you know.” — Pete Bates [13:35]
• Cycle of Violence & Barriers to Escape:
  • Explains why women don't “just leave” abusive relationships—citing the escalation of threat and control.
    • Harrowing childhood memory:
      • Pete’s father threatened to burn the house with the family inside when his mother tried to leave.
        • “He just started dousing all the furniture, walked up the hallway where I was sitting, poured petrol over me and he said to her, are you still gonna leave?” — Pete Bates [14:57]
    • “She submitted to save my life. That... He probably would have went ahead and lit us up, you know.” — Pete Bates [15:02]
• Transition and Rehabilitation:
  • While in prison, Pete learned to read and write, started self-improvement, and quit drugs.
  • Became a peer-mentor in prison for those trying to break addiction cycles.
  • “Our past explains us. It doesn't excuse us. It's a choice.” — Pete Bates [18:25]
• Men’s Role in Ending Violence:
  • Pete argues addressing domestic violence isn’t a women’s issue—it's a collective responsibility.
    • “Every single man, boy and child should be concerned about domestic violence. It should not be okay.” — Pete Bates [19:19]
  • Highlights the frequency and severity of gendered and domestic violence in Australia, advocating for proactive male intervention and solidarity.
    • “A woman is killed in this country every, every eight days. And this year is pretty bad at the moment. Like, the numbers are pretty high this year. That, that should be concerning, you know.” — Pete Bates [19:49]

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3. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “It's a voice that will send shivers down your spine.” — Michelle Laurie [00:50]
• “If the head family wants something to happen, it happens and if it doesn't, someone's car gets exploded.” — Michelle Laurie [12:39]
• “Our past explains us. It doesn't excuse us. It's a choice.” — Pete Bates [18:25]
• “It shouldn't be a women's issue... It's an issue for all of us.” — Michelle Laurie [20:10]

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4. Timestamps for Critical Segments

• Listener feedback, podcast shoutouts: 01:51 – 06:58
• True Crime Book Club: “The New Mafia” explained: 07:10 – 12:43
• Life in mafia-influenced Calabria, normalization of organized crime: 09:44 – 12:43
• Pete Bates interview (incarceration, abuse, advocacy): 12:59 – 20:35

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5. Summary Tone and Takeaways

The episode’s tone is direct, empathetic, and fiercely committed to exposing overlooked corners of organized crime and its generational impacts. Laurie and her team combine casual, conversational exchanges with bursts of chilling detail and hard-earned insight—particularly notable in the Pete Bates interview. The conversations urge listeners to confront hard truths about violence, complicity, and the possibility of change.

• The consequences of silence (both in mafia-run towns and domestic settings) are a recurring motif.
• Redemption and advocacy after trauma—exemplified by Pete Bates—offer hope against the background of entrenched violence.
• Listeners are encouraged to remain curious, question the surface of “normal” suburban life, and participate in true crime conversations, resource sharing, and survivor support.

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Links for Support:
Contact Lifeline (13 11 14 | lifeline.org.au) for 24-hour crisis support.

Further Listening:

• “Escaping the Cross” by Glenn Owen Fisher
• “The Chris Watts Tapes”
• Full Pete Bates interview on the Australian True Crime podcast

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Summary crafted to preserve the distinctive voices and storytelling style of Michelle Laurie and her guests; omits ad spots and non-content chatter for clarity and focus.

Transcript

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[True Crime Tonight Content Warning Announcer]

Warning. This is a true crime segment and not suitable for children. It contains references to sexual violence and suicide, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you are not alone. Contact Lifeline on 13, 11, 14 or visit lifeline.org au for 24 hour support.

[Michelle Laurie]

It's a voice that will send shivers down your spine.

[Matthew]

Standoff with police wanted fugitive step 19 times.

[Michelle Laurie]

The suspect lured the victim into the war. Biggest legal dramas in Hollywood. Today is a major to show what the system can do. This is True Crime Tonight. Hello, this is True Crime Tonight. I am your host, Michelle Laurie. I'm here with Matthew and Ruby, the producers, the people who create all of this. Thank you both so much.

[Matthew]

Oh, thank you, Michelle.

[Michelle Laurie]

That was really nice. I just want to give you some flowers.

[Matthew]

Never heard you say that before.

[Michelle Laurie]

Oh, that's all right. We have a book recommendation coming up.

[Pete Bates]

Didn't want to linger?

[Michelle Laurie]

No, because you threw me under the bus. I just said thank you and then you were like, oh, she never does that. So I just stepped away from it. But I tell you what, we do have a book recommendation coming up and an interview with Pete Bates. Now, you're gonna find him very interesting. I don't wanna give too much away, but Pete has spent a lot of time in jail.

[Matthew]

Yes.

[Michelle Laurie]

So it's a particular perspective that he has on the world and I think he's fantastic. But I believe we have a message from a listener, Matthew.

[Matthew]

We do. It's. What are we calling it? The True Crime Hotline.

[Michelle Laurie]

That's what we're calling it.

[Matthew]

And to leave us a message on the true crime hotline, you can find a link. It's called a Speak pipe link. I don't wanna get too complicated, but it's in the show notes of every Australian true crime podcast episode and it's also on. Let's play this week's.

[Ruby]

Hey, guys. Absolutely love the show. And I just wanted to highlight an excellent podcast I've been listening to that I think Michelle in particular might be interested in. It's called Escaping the Cross by Glenn Owen Fisher. And I just also wanted to explore a little bit the case of Chris and Shanann Watts. Over in Colorado, there's a really great podcast called the Chris Watts Tapes, which covers quite a few aspects that weren't covered in the Netflix documentary. There's so many unanswered questions, which is why the podcast is great. Cause it kind of, in a way, maybe answers some of those for some people.

[Michelle Laurie]

Thank you so much. You know, please, though, you guys have got to leave your names. I would love to be able to say thank you. Your name.

[Ruby]

Yeah.

[Matthew]

But maybe they want to be anonymous.

[Michelle Laurie]

Maybe they do.

[Matthew]

Crime World.

[Michelle Laurie]

Try and remember to go, hi, I'm Michelle from Altona, or wherever, whoever you are. That's who I am. But, yeah, everyone knows that, Ruby. Everyone knows that.

[Ruby]

I was gonna say, do we wanna put that on out?

[Michelle Laurie]

Everybody knows I'm from Altona. Escaping the cross is interesting.

[Matthew]

Yes. That was with Glenn Fisher, who we've had on Australian true crime. He has a book called Predator's Paradise. Glenn Fisher was one of lots of kids in that era who.

[Ruby]

Yes.

[Matthew]

You know, coming from broken homes.

[Michelle Laurie]

Oh, God, he taught me so much about those awful refuges in a vertical place. Yeah.

[Pete Bates]

I call them.

[Matthew]

I want to call them like institution, but it's not even really. It's not even like a government place. It was like privately owned.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah. But this one, one that he was talking about specifically, that was run by people who were subsequently convicted of.

[Matthew]

Yes.

[Michelle Laurie]

Predation of molestation. But it had government funding.

[Matthew]

Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

Like, it wasn't, you know, it was just this wild west of funneling disadvantaged children towards pedophiles. I swear to God, that was the whole setup.

[Matthew]

So there'd be like these, basically these homes where kids could go and stay, run by, I guess you'd call them social workers. Well, is what they would call themselves.

[Michelle Laurie]

Did they have any training? I don't know. They were just blokes and.

[Matthew]

Yeah, essentially just heaps of them were being abused by the people that worked there. And also.

[Ruby]

That's awful.

[Michelle Laurie]

It's unbelievable. And it's not that long ago. And a number of violent, of course, violent offenders, it turns out, had ties back to their childhood in these places.

[Ruby]

So this guy that came on the podcast was the child that went through that system.

[Matthew]

Yeah, he would. Glenn gave evidence into the Wood Royal Commission and also the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse. And he assisted police to hold three abusers accountable in court cases that led to their convictions and imprisonment. He posts so much about this sort of stuff on TikTok and on Instagram. So find Glenn Fisher and his book Predator's Paradise.

[Michelle Laurie]

Well, thank you as well to our listener for telling us about the podcast. I did not know about that. That's brilliant. So there's that. And she also wants us to know about the Chris. And you say Shanann Watts. I've always said Shannon. I didn't know Shanann. I didn't know how to pronounce her name. But, of course, this is the famous murder. And the documentary is the Netflix doc American the Family Next Door. And what's extraordinary about that documentary is that I've never seen one. Now, it's quite common, but even this was, I don't know, six or seven years ago. The amount of footage that they had from cece, from other people's ring cameras, from other houses, security cameras, and things like that. So that combined with the body cam on the police officers is wild, because we're seeing this man when he's first being confronted. When Shanann's family, her mother and her sister and stuff, are arriving at the house with the police to say, we don't know where she is, we're knocking on the door to ask him if he knows anything. And so he opens the door. Now we know he's murdered her and their two daughters and disposed of their bodies because he's got a girlfriend that he wants to be with.

[True Crime Tonight Content Warning Announcer]

Wait, have we talked about this one?

[Michelle Laurie]

I'm sure we have, many times. Absolutely. But I didn't know about the podcast, the Chris Watts tapes. And that is what our friend on the hotline is telling us about. Yeah, she's going, look, you think you know the whole story because the documentary is so great, but she's like, oh, there's more. So these are two great recommendations from her. Thank you so much.

[Ruby]

I'm definitely gonna jump on and listen to that.

[Michelle Laurie]

Escaping the Cross and the Chris Watts tapes. I'm all about the tapes these days. You know, I was listening to the Ted Bundy tapes. There's the John Wayne Gacy tapes. Yeah, this. There's something amazing about listening to someone's own voice as they're telling the story, you know, and at various stages of acceptance that they're done. So, yes, great. Excellent recommendations. Thank you so much. And please keep them coming. I really. I can't tell you how much I live for these messages. I love them. More of those, please. And so there's links in the show, notes of every podcast episode, and it's also on our socials for our True Crime hotline. This is True Crime Tonight with Michelle Laurie.

[Matthew]

Coming up, we've got an interview with Pete Bates about the Pete Bates project where he helps women name the patterns that systems, families and professionals keep missing. But first, Michelle, over to you with our true crime book club.

[Michelle Laurie]

The book I'm talking about this week is a book called the New Mafia by a lady called Sunny DeBoer. The Drangetta. And what is the Drangheta? Well, it's the Mafia. So what I've learned from this book is. I mean, I thought I knew as much about the mafia as there was to know. You know, I've seen all the movies.

[Pete Bates]

Yep, that's right.

[Matthew]

Vague idea.

[Michelle Laurie]

Right. And that's kind of the point. The point is that there are two main mafia groups out of Italy. The one that all the movies are about. The Godfather, Goodfellas, all those movies, they're about the Cosa Nostra, which is the Sicilian Mafia. The Drangetta is the other one. The Drangetta are the mafia from Calabria. Okay, sorry. So many Italian words to think about. And I would say they're arguably more scary. They are very much more disciplined. Things like if someone's late for a meeting, they might flush your head down the toilet, which sounds juvenile, but the point is that in their world, that's so humiliating that it's worse than being shot. It's worse than to walk into a meeting, a big guy, big mafia guy, and have them go, you are late. And flush your teeth, head down the toilet. I get that.

[Pete Bates]

Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

If you guys did that to me, I get that. I get that it's serious. It doesn't sound serious, but I get that. If you guys did that to me, I'd be so humiliated. I'd never get over it.

[Ruby]

Should we start doing that when you're late?

[Michelle Laurie]

I'm late a lot. So let's not institute that rule. But we're not going drangitta rules on this show. But they also, you know, they carried out a spate of kidnappings in the 70s. And there's a very, very famous story where they kidnapped J. Paul Getty Jr. Who was at that. The. The God. Grandson, sorry, of the man who was at that time the richest man in the world. Richest man in the world is an oil man, an American, this offshoot of his family. One of his sons and his kids are living in Rome. And they're living it up like they're kind of living like hippies, but with this huge trust funds behind them, you know. So of course, this kid becomes quite famous around Rome. Everyone's paying attention to what's going on. And they call him the Barefoot hippie. But everyone knows he's worth, his family's worth billions of dollars. So it feels almost inevitable that he is kidnapped. But the thing about it is that his granddad didn't become the richest guy in the world for nothing. He refuses to pay. He refuses to pay. So these terrifying gangsters have got his grandson, who's about 17. He says, if I pay for this kid, all my other grandkids are gonna get abducted, gonna get kidnapped.

[Ruby]

Sacrifice the one.

[Michelle Laurie]

That was his argument. His argument was, I've gotta stay firm and eventually they'll give this kid back. Well, not only did they not give him back, they sent his ear in the post. Cut off his ear, sent it in the post. Eventually there was a lot of to and fro ing for months. Eventually, a ransom was paid. It was much, much smaller. They did get the kid back, who subsequently, by the way, developed a terrible drug addiction and died a horrible.

[Matthew]

No kidding.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah, right.

[Matthew]

Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

Deeply, deeply traumatised. But the thing is, I think they only got, when I say only a couple of million dollars in the end as the ransom. But what they did with it is fascinating. They invested it in building a port in Calabria. So they. Of course, they're working closely with the government. In these environments, the government's usually involved in the organised crime somehow. So together, the Drangheta and the government built a port in Calabria, which became and continues to be the biggest drug port in the world.

[Ruby]

That's all still happening today.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah.

[Ruby]

And how do we think Sane feels about writing a book about them if they don't want all this clout?

[Michelle Laurie]

What's great about this book, the New Mafia, is that she just moved to. She did this great thing where she came into a little bit of money and she basically Googled, where can I buy a house for this much money? And these villagers came up in Calabria and she thought, okay, I'll do that. She can work remotely. So she went there. She worked in the publishing industry, but was not a journalist. So she moves into this town and she just starts to notice. Very organically, the Ndranghetta. Like, she just notices. Okay, there's families. There's a family that runs this village. There's a family that runs that village. A lady in her street's car exploded one night. All the neighbours go running out and they see this car's exploded and. And then they realise that the lady who owns it, she's standing there. She works for the local council. It's her job to give out permits to people. Building permits. Well, obviously she didn't give a building permit to someone she should have and they just blew her car up. And Sane said not only was she not, no one's screaming, no one's freaking out when they're watching this car burn. It's like everyone knew what except her. It took her a while to ask some questions of find out what had happened. Everyone just went, okay, her fault that's happened. Yeah, that's happened. She never even called the police. This lady, that's crazy. That ingrained, it's that obvious. That's what Sanay realized she's like. When she first got there she thought, oh, these people are so beautiful. As if any of them would be involved in organized crime. But then she realized it's like, it's just so deep in the fabric of these communities. It's like you just, if the head family wants something to happen, it happens and if it doesn't, someone's car gets exploded. The new mafia Sonny DeBoer. This is true Crime Tonight with Michelle Laurie

[True Crime Tonight Content Warning Announcer]

Warning. This is a true crime segment and not suitable for children. It contains references to sexual violence and suicide which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you are not alone. Contact Lifeline on 13 11, 14 or visit lifeline.orgau for 24 hour support.

[Michelle Laurie]

Welcome back to True Crime Tonight. Unfortunately, we don't hear a lot of stories about long term prisoners transitioning successfully back into society. But we have one for you today. Pete Bates runs the Pete Bates Project, a fast growing platform dedicated to exposing coercive control, post separation abuse and the behavioural patterns that put women and children at risk. He joins us to talk about his mission.

[Pete Bates]

I remember going to pub with pubs with men and they say if I ever saw a bloke do this to his woman, I'd do this, this and I'd do that. And then being at barbecues where a bloke has said something to his misses or put his misses down or disrespected her and all the men at the, at the barbecue, look at their shoes when that gets said, you know.

[Ruby]

Yeah.

[Pete Bates]

So just with my, my past and where I've been, I feel like I'm in a position where I can stand out front and say something. And I remember being that little kid hoping that a man like me would come through that door and grab me and get me out of that house, you know. So in a way I sort of feel that I'm speaking for those kids now, you know, that they're looking out the door and hoping someone comes along. And saves them. You know, I talk a lot about how women are. Everyone goes, why don't you just leave him? Why don't you just leave him? Now I used to watch my father knock my mother out against the fridge and hold her up with uppercuts when she was unconscious. And then the police would come and by the time the police got there, us kids were given scripts to say the place she was given scripts to say to the police. The one time that she did get the courage up to leave him was the scariest moment of all because he went quiet and he disappeared. She was in the room packing her bags, she had the suitcases on the bed and then he disappeared for a few minutes and he's come back upstairs and I was sitting in the hallway and then as he's come back through the door, he had 20 litre jerrycan full of petrol and he just started dousing all the furniture, walked up the hallway where I was sitting, poured petrol over me and he said to her, are you still gonna leave? And then he pulled his lighter out and she had to submit. She submitted to save my life. That like he probably would have went ahead and lit us up, you know.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yep.

[Pete Bates]

Now so many women are in that position where that's why they don't leave because the consequences are so much worse at that stage. As a young fellow, because I ran away from home at 13 after the petrol incident and a million other incidents with the old man, I just went, I'm out of here and I run away at 13. I started using heroin. I was feeling so much pain inside myself as a child from. I didn't realize this until I got older and I got counseling and I worked on myself but I wanted to hurt other people and I wanted to inflict pain on other people because of the pain I was feeling inside me.

[Michelle Laurie]

What offending did you participate in?

[Pete Bates]

Well, what I went to prison for.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah.

[Pete Bates]

So. In 1999 I was charged for a murder. It was a, a girl, the mother of my child. We had broken up and she had a couple of young girls over babysitting. This particular day while she was at work, she was walking the babysitters home. Once she'd finished work and a car load of blokes had driven past and yelled out abuse out the window. She had yelled back, responded, this car's on a U turn, jumped out of the car, she's had words with him. One of the blokes slapped her up the side of the head and it just so happened that the two girls that she was Walking home, recognized the car, knew where they lived. She called me, told me what had happened. I was young, wild, stupid. I went to the house, jumped the fence, went inside the house and went silly. And one of the boys, one of the men in the house, fell over and bashed his head on the tiles and it killed him instantly. It was a horrible night. It was a horrible thing. It cost a life. It cost his family and it cost my family. I ended up pleading guilty to manslaughter. I ended up doing serving 14 and a half years. I went to prison. I couldn't read, I couldn't write. No, really, no, I couldn't. I couldn't read or write. I'd left school. I got kicked out of school first week of grade 8. Did a lot of solitary while I was locked up. And an old guard that I'd known for a while, he gave me a encyclopedia. And it was about the cosmos, the stars and all that. I couldn't read, but I was just, I was looking at the pictures and trying to sound words out. Ended up taking that book back with me. I got a dictionary. They started the reading. I just started devouring books. Then I started doing self help, self help books and just, just starting to work on myself. I quit using drugs in 2007 in prison because it was rampant and just buckled down and just started focusing on myself, watching the men around me come in and out. I didn't want that. I just wanted to be different to what everyone else was doing. They asked me if I'd help mentor some of the younger blokes that were trying to get off the gear. They set up a unit in the prison, isolated from all the other units so no one could get down there. And blokes would come in there detoxing and they'd have counselors come down, would do meetings, NA meetings, AA meetings. And then one day this beautiful blonde lady walked into the, into the fishbowl. And I'm still married to her now, so my wife has never had to fear me or my daughter. To me, like a lot of, A lot of men fall back on their past and my, you know, my father did it or this happened to me and pull me, you know, our past explains us. It doesn't excuse us. It's a choice. You, It's a choice. What you do is a choice. So you know it's wrong. If your family, if the atmosphere changes in your house because of your mood and your family's got a tiptoe around you, then that's a choice. You know, what you're doing. Every single man, boy and child should be concerned about domestic violence. It should not be okay.

[Michelle Laurie]

It shouldn't be a women's issue, shouldn't

[Pete Bates]

be a woman's issue. Like, we've all got mothers, daughters, sisters. Like, a woman is killed in this country every, every eight days. And this year is pretty bad at the moment. Like, the numbers are pretty high this year. That, that should be concerning, you know,

[Michelle Laurie]

like, well, and because children are killed as well.

[Pete Bates]

And, and, and children.

[Michelle Laurie]

And, and children are devastated like you were. Little boys, male children. It's, it's not a women's issue. It's an issue for all of us. And I agree with you. I think there's a. Definitely a place and a great place in our society for masculine men.

[Pete Bates]

Definitely. Definitely. And that's, that's sort of why I try and stand out front now and say, it's, it's all right. We need to speak up as men. We need to speak up and say it's not okay.

[Michelle Laurie]

Thank you again to our guest, Pete Bates. If you would like to listen to the full interview with him, and I suggest you do, cause it's pretty outstanding, I'm gonna say, is a good way to describe it in many ways. You can check out that full conversation on our podcast, Australian True Crime. It's available on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening to the show True Crime tonight. You can join us every week, and I hope you do every Sunday from 6 till 7. We'll see you next time.