← The Underworld Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Buying a car in Carvana was so easy, I was able to finance it through them. I just. Whoa, wait. You mean finance? Yeah, finance. Got pre qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms and shot from thousands of great car options, all within my budget. That's cool. But financing through Carvana was so easy. Financed, done. And I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow. Financed, right? That's what they said. You can spend time trying to pronounce financing, or you can actually finance and buy your car. Today on Carvana financing, subject to credit approval. Additional terms and conditions may apply.
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B
Tron, Ares has arrived.
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C
I would like you to meet Ares, the ultimate AI soldier. He is biblically strong and supremely intelligent.
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A
You think you're in control of this? You're not.
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C
On October 10th, what are you? My world is coming to destroy yours. But I can help you. The war for our world begins in IMAX. Tron Ares, rated PG13. May be inappropriate for children under 13.
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B
Only in theaters October 10th.
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C
Get tickets now. You It's Christmas Eve 1989, somewhere outside the village of Carreri in Calabria. A sleepy place of cobbled stone streets and stone houses, home to 2,000 people and wedged between the Ionian Sea and the mountains of the rugged Astromonte region. Everybody's gearing up for the year's biggest day. Well, almost everybody. Because there are other far less festive plans playing out in Carreri this evening, and they're about to go off like a bomb. Cesare Casella is the teenage son of a local car dealer, and he's been held in captivity by gangsters for almost two years. It's a case that has gripped Italy thanks largely to Cesare's own mother, Angiolina, who has gone on a media rampage denouncing Calabria's feared mob, the Ndrangheta, which claims to have taken her son. Newspapers call Angiolina Mama Coraggio or Mother Courage. But Cesare is still in chains, probably in one of the Ndranghetta's many bunkers or hideouts, bored into the peaks of the Aspromonte, out of sight and well out of reach of Italy's cops. Until now, a first ransom had already been paid without Cesare's freedom, and subsequent trickery has convinced a local magistrate named Vincenzo Calia that the kidnappers simply will never play ball. Caglia has seen his people suffer at the hands of this mob, a collection of secretive, ultra violent plans for over two decades. The Berlin Wall is down, the Cold War is ending, and new political forces are taking Over Europe. To hell with this old world. Cali avows not least the Ndrangheta. His cops have already refused to try flushing the kidnappers out of the mountains. Since the 60s, they've become a Calabrian Tora Bora, flush with tunnels and bunkers and lairs, all connected via secret chambers to streets, homes and farmyards at ground level. So on December 20, Callia manufactures a deal. Bring Cesare to Kereri, he says. We'll bring a driver, a car and the rest of your cash. It's all a trap, of course. Caglia goes over the cops heads and he instructs a special forces unit of Italy's Carabinieri, its military police, to switch the requested vehicle en route for one tricked out with armored plating, flares and deafening sirens. Not quite 007, but not too shabby either. At the wheel is a young man, as requested, but he's no getaway driver. He's special forces and he's armed. And there's a second armed man lying in the trunk. Kalia then busies his remaining police force with a ton of seizures and raids in the nearby towns of Plati and San Luca, the Ndranghetta's most notorious strongholds. The scene is now set. But when the crooks arrive, there's no proof of life. They've lied again. So Plan B fires into action. The commando at the wheel sets off his booming siren and he opens fire. The mobsters, stunned, retreat, praying and spraying as they flee. But one of them, Giuseppe Strangio, is shot in the leg and he's arrested. It's been over 700 days now and there's still no Cesare. But neither is there honor among thieves, not least the barbaric and Drangetta. And pretty soon the capture of Strangio is singing like a short toed snake. Eagle. That's a native Calabrian bird, according to Wikipedia, recognizing the field by its predominantly white underside too. In case you didn't know, little side note there, Strangio, head of an Ndrangheta faction called the Barbarians, cooperates with Kalia and pleads from prison for the young boy to be released. Little do Strangio Caglia or Mama Caraggio know, but the fate of little Cesare Casella, to be sealed by the end of the following month, will bring with it a whole new era in the history of the Ndrangheta, Italian organized crime and the entire criminal world. Welcome to the Underworld Podcast. Hello and welcome to the weekly organized crime podcast, hosted by two reporters who have investigated crime and wish they had the guts to do it themselves. I am Sean Williams, Wellington, New Zealand, and I'm joined today by Danny Gold in New York City, I think. Well, I'm pretty sure because you're in a studio, the housewives have finally got their wish. So now you can see us recording this thing on video. Hello. Danny's in a fancy studio and I'm in my apartment surrounded by books. So you can tell I'm a proper intellectual. See, I spent my entire career hiding behind a notepad and now you're going to see just how spontaneous and charismatic I am. What a world.
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D
Yeah, I mean, I was actually like an on air correspondent for a while and I still was probably more hesitant than you to switch to video, but, you know, then again, I don't have that devilish Seann Williams smile or teenage hairline. So here we are. You know, let's. Let's give it a go.
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C
Yeah, why not? Now first off, for those of you not already signed up to the Patreon, a consistent slew of bonus shows, interviews, semi regular stash house roundups, reading lists and show notes. A lot of bang for not much buck. So do that now.
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D
Yeah, that's a patreon.com anyworldpodcast or you can sign up right on Spotify or on itunes just to see all that bonus material that we put out there.
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C
Yeah, it's. It's cool stuff, so get on it. But today we are diving into the. I never know whether to actually do the pronunciation or not and whether that makes me a dick, but the Undanghetta Undrangetta. The sanguine assassins of Southern Italy. A Calabrian powerhouse worth up to 55 billion bucks by some estimates. Global cocaine kingpin. Sometimes I'm alliterating myself out of the game here. Operating out of the remote Aspromonte region you just heard about in the cold open. Now, last time we focused on the Andranghetta was back in 2023 when we spoke to Alex Perry, author of the Good Mothers. Fantastic book on women standing up to the group and sometimes paying the ultimate price. Alex's book was made into a Disney plus show a while back. You watched it? Daddy only read lengthy books about geopolitics and philosophy as. As you can see right here.
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D
No, I did not. But good for him and glad he's getting that TV money and getting paid. But I think we've done a. Have we done other episodes on the end that I get? I know we've mentioned them. Them a bit.
- [08:11]
C
Oh, you're doing the accent. Yeah. I think we did like one other, but I can't remember. It has been. What has it been? Like over five years now. Jesus. But yeah, Alec's book, it's amazing. You should definitely read it if you haven't already. It breaks apart some of the gallant myths these guys have peddled about themselves decades. The, the stories they've spun about themselves as coming from this honorable peasant farmer background, almost these kind of gentlemen thieves, when the reality is that they're an ultra violent, ultra misogynist band of barbarians who will do anything for power and money. Now, they came back onto my radar a couple weeks back when one of their leading foreign capos was found dead in a burned out car in the Indrangetta stronghold of San Luca. Which is a story that climbs all the way back in time to the tale from this week's episode. So today's show is going to go from the 60s to that blackened SUV today via a series of high profile kidnappings showing how the act of kidnapping actually turned the Ndranghetta from peasant gangsters into cigarette smugglers and then the narco warlords they are and we love today. And it was really, it really was kidnapping that made the group. So you're going to learn why and how in a few minutes. But to do that we need to set the scene. So close your eyes, settle the heartbeat, because we're going back to 1968, guys. Dave Gilmour's joined Pink Floyd, North Korea's captured the USS Pueblo, and the Tet Offensive kicks off in Vietnam.
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D
What song should they play in the background? Is this more of like and Then not Us? Because the copyright stuff, is this like a credence situation?
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C
Oh, oh my God. Yeah, just play CCR over the top of everything. I think it's just the best band in history, but millions of Italians at this time. I don't know if they're listening to ccr, but they are riding high after their football team beats Yugoslavia to become European champions. But outside of sport, the country is in turmoil. Students and leftists are rioting and protesting all over Europe from Paris to Prague. And hard left groups like the Rota army fraction, the Bada Meinhof group, they're popping up everywhere to push for socialism and an end to societies they believe haven't been properly fumigated of fascists and Nazis since the war. And in that at least, they are correct. Arguably. Nowhere on the continent though goes as batshit as Italy during this time, however. And a general strike in 1968 begins a two decade period known as the Annie di Piombo or Years of Lead, which feature incredible levels of political extremist violence like bomb plots, murders and kidnappings.
- [10:48]
D
I think a few years ago we did a bonus on the Years of Lead and just how absolutely insane it was. And the involvement of various Italian organized crime groups in the Years of Lead.
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C
Yeah, yeah, it really, it can't be overstated how nuts this, this era was. And for many during this time, right, Italy is bang center in the middle of the Cold War. Its status as the home of Roman Catholicism makes it a target of godless communists keen to sweep out Italy's old guard, dismantle NATO and install a Marxist Leninist utopia. Now, this deadly movement coagulates most notably in the Red Brigades. Think Bader Meinhof, but with skinny cigarettes and Vespers, obviously they think the best way to smash the patriarchy and the status quo is to blow stuff up, which they do a lot. And they execute political and business leaders, including former Italian PM Aldo Moro in 1978. On the other side of this tumult, of course, are fascists who often side with gangs like Sicily's Cosa Nostra, the Camorra of Campania and the Undrangetta. Oh, and sometimes the CIA, but that's probably for another show. Now these guys hate students, long hair, atheism, abortion, divorce, and they definitely hate bum sex. A surprising amount of this violence happens because old men don't like bums and they want to return Italy to patriarchy, the prelates and Mussolini's brand of nationalist supremacy. And right at the heart of this side is something called propaganda due or P2, a super secretive Freemason sect populated by politicians, titans of industry, cops, capos, bankers. And they are happy to massacre civilians too, if it means no more bifters, hemp shirts and bum sex. Pretty mad stuff.
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D
I think you did an episode right on them already too. Like, we've just done episodes on everything, man. We keep, we keep going. We're keep, we're keeping it, keeping on.
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C
I think the latest bonus is also about God's banker, Roberto Calvi. So, yeah, if you're, if you tuned into the Patreon, check that one out. It's really, really interest. So the Annie DiPiombo years have led, therefore create this whole economy of violence that terrorizes the Italian people. And the Undrangetta see a chance to bump up its profile. Now, up until this point, it's been a pretty minor player in the Italian underworld, mostly preying on their own in Calabria. Extorting, stealing, selling the old bag of Weed. Their own folklore might mostly be bs, but they do definitely come from incredibly tight knit clans from the hills. And unlike their counterparts in Sicily or Naples, their kingpins don't show off their ill gotten wealth. They prefer instead to hold wealth or pile it into their local villages. Don't worry, the Robin Hood klaxon isn't going off this episode. The Androgueta aren't the only organized crime group to join the left and right terrorists in kidnapping. At the tail of the 1960s, though various bandits on the island of Sardinia. They also nab folks to the extent the Italian media constructs the phrase anonymousarda to describe them, which pretty hilariously just means anonymous Sardinians. But these gu aren't structured. The Ndranghetta are. In fact, in the late 60s and early 70s, around 90% of kidnappings for ransom are carried out by the ndrangheta. And in 1972, the number of such kidnappings increases from nine to over 60.
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D
I mean, I guess it's profitable, but kidnapping sounds like such a poor choice for like an organized crime group to sort of get off the ground. You know, it's just like a whole lot of babysitting, right?
- [14:19]
C
I mean, we're gonna find out that they don't spend a huge amount of money on the actual babysitting and maybe that's part of the problem. So yeah, I, it's, it's a real big deal at this thing. And it, and these aren't just like random snatches of people outside provincial pubs, right? These are, these are high profile targets. The sons and daughters of political leaders and industrialists with deep pockets. And because the police, like much of Italy during this time, are just a mess, the families pay, pay out big time. A lot of these stats are coming from an excellent Cambridge University paper, by the way, written by Christina Barbieri and Vittorio Meti. It's on the reading list, among other things, for Patreon members. It's really fascinating stuff. All of this is making headlines in Italy at the time, of course, but in 1973, the group pulls off a kidnapping that captures the global imagination. In the early hours of June 10 that year, American playboy and king of the Nepo babies, John Paul Getty iii, disappears from Rome's Piazza Navona. Now, American listeners won't need reminding who the Getty family are, but for those of you outside the us JPG the third, that's what I'm going to call him now, is the grandson of J. Paul Getty, an oil prospector who bet big on Saudi Discovering oil, which is pretty good bet, let's face it. And at one point, the world's richest man, now one of Jay Paul's sons is John Paul Getty Jr. Or JGP2, who is dispatched to run the family's Italian business. And he lives it up. He does drugs, beds, tons of women flitting between London, Morocco and Italy in the swinging 60s. And his son is no different, according to one source, quote, a swinging playboy who drove fast cars, drank heavily experimented with drugs and squired raunchy starlets, which is a bit like me.
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D
Isn't that just called being like a rich Italian guy?
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C
Yeah, yeah, it is, actually. And so, J. Paul Getty jpg 1. The grandfather, a legendarily miserly man, seems to dislike all this partying. And he cuts jpg free age, just 17 at this point, out of the family wealth. Enough that the young man is frequently running out of cash and getting deep in debt. He even boasts about how he could make a ton of money being kidnapped, which has led to all kinds of speculative books and TV shows about how he staged his own kidnapping. Either way, a few days after his apparent abduction, jpg3's mum gets a letter saying, quote, dear Mother, I've fallen into the hands of kidnappers. Don't let me be killed. What? Make sure that the police do not interfere. You must not, absolutely not, take this as a joke. Don't give publicity to my kidnapping. This is like, that's a pretty weird note. And the Italian cops leave and lay off the manhunt for a while. They think it's a hoax too. But two more letters come through the mail, signed by the Ndranghetta. I don't know what that signature looks like. Maybe just a splash of blood or something. And they demand around $17 million in ransom money, which is a huge, huge amount for the time when JGP2 asked jpg1 to pay. The old man refuses. I have 14 other grandchildren, he says. If I pay one penny now, then I'll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren. And whether jpg3 has engineered this kidnapping self or if it's genuine by November 1973, the gangsters definitely turn on him. And they cut off one of his ears, which they send via mail to his mother. This is Paul's ear. The accompanying note reads, no shit. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits. I love that in other words bit. Anyway, he persuades this persuades rather jpg the first to stump up Some loot. But he negotiates the gangsters down to 2.9 million, 2.2 of which he'll pay because that is the biggest amount he can dish out. Tax deductible with the remaining 700k in the form of a 4% interest loan to his son jpg2. Now that is some cold stuff. On December 15, 1973, jpg3 finally tastes freedom, writes Time magazine. Quote. Truck driver Antonio Tedesco was heading towards Salerno on the Italian altostrada. But shortly before dawn, suddenly, in the driving rain, he saw a lone figure wildly waving his arms by the side of the road. Tedesco pulled to a stop, and the young man, weeping and drenched to the skin, told him, I am a kidnapping captive. I need to get to a telephone to call my mother in Rome. Moments later, the carabinieri arrive. I am Paul Getty, he told them. May I have a cigarette? The police immediately noticed what the truck driver had not the youth's right ear was missing.
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D
I mean, that's a pretty solid first line from emerging from a kidnapping, asking for a smoke, you know?
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C
Yeah. Again, though, isn't that just Italian? But yeah.jpg3 reveals that he's been getting bumped between mountain hideouts by the mobsters, none of which the police have a clue about. The cops do manage to hunt down the kidnappers, though, by tracking the notes used in the ransom payment. They arrest nine and Convict two. But even though some of the gang winds up behind bars, the whole thing is a massive coup for the Ndrangheta. Not only are they now several million dollars richer, and there aren't many crimes that have such a big roi, but they're now gaining notoriety across Italy and just as importantly, among the thieves and hoods who run the country's underworld. To prove how these guys just pump money back into the hood, there's a whole new district of a Calabrian town nicknamed Paul Getty after it's allegedly built with the ransom cash. In the wake of the jpg3 saga, kidnapping becomes by far the Ndrangheta's fattest cash cow. Writes that Cambridge Uni paper. Quote, this money served as a form of capital accumulation in Calabria in the 1970s. For example, it was subsequently invested in the field of private construction and used for the purchase of vehicles and equipment so that the gangs could compete for major public works contracts. Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5 only. At McDonald's for a limited time.
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D
Prices and participation may vary.
- [20:56]
A
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C
The kidnappings might also help build political clout or break the will of businessmen refusing to do deals with the group or persuade a wealthy landowner to part with fields or buildings the Ndrangheta want to use.
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D
Yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess I get it now. Makes sense that they were getting involved with that.
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C
Yeah, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty useful all around. While by the way, the group is able to spin this false tale of honor and blood brotherhood of a bunch of other law. Again, check out the Alex Perry episode for a ton of that. Where in reality they're just venal gangsters and in 1975 they carry out a kidnapping that leaves few Italians wondering who they really are. Cristina Mazzotti is the 18 year old daughter of a wealthy businessman. On July 1, 1975, she is returning home from a party with friends in the town of Upilio in northern Italy near Lake Como, when she's snatched by a group of Ndranghetta heavies and driven to a nearby gang safe house. She's the first female victim of the new spate of kidnappings. Immediately, the kidnappers contact Mazzotti's family, demanding millions to release her. As they're doing so, the Italian authorities are realizing that all this is undermining their efforts to stop other kidnappings. And it ponders freezing the accounts of victims family members. A hugely controversial move, but something that they believe nonetheless might just work. The thing is, it's one thing to take someone's freedom and demand money, that's a pretty bad thing. But the Calabrians do this. They bury Matsotti in a small hole dug in a garage floor and they force her to breathe through a tube. They also feed her daily doses of Valium to keep her quiet, alternated with injections of stimulants when they want her to beg her parents for the ransom. By the end of 1975, August, that is so, almost two months after she disappeared, the captors negotiate a fee of $1 million for Matsotti's release. But on the exact day the family hands over the money, the kidnappers inject Matsotti with an overdose of stimulants, which kills her. Then they abandon her body in a landfill around an hour from Eupilia.
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D
Oh, man, I mean, that is brutal. And kidnapping and killing an 18 year old girl is not something that the state or your neighbors and the people surrounding you are ever going to forgive.
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C
No, no. And actually there is worse stuff that I didn't even put in this show, but this is the one that kind of follows that timeline of how the group is seen. I mean, the crime obviously shocks Italy, right? And it brings home the painful truth that the Undrangeta aren't some band of gentlemen bandits, but cold blooded murderers of innocent teenagers. Some low level members are caught when they deposit marked banknotes into a Swiss account. But the mastermind of Matt Sotti's murder aren't identified until all the way up in 2007, when cops match a fingerprint from the victim's car to Demetrio Latella, a high ranking Ndrangheta mobster who confesses and identifies others involved in the grisly case. And it takes all the way until last year, 2024, for Lutella and three others to be convicted of, quote, murder as a consequence of kidnapping, says Alberto Nobili, the magistrate who cracks the cold case. Quote, for the Ndrangheta, money was everything. Human life counted for nothing. And they haven't changed. So we're two major kidnappings deep now. One is the high profile capture of an American socialite. The other is the cruel and callous murder that wakes Italy up to the brutality of these lesser known Calabrian goons. By the end of the 1970s, kidnapping has largely done its job for the group. It reinvests the millions the traders brought them, some of it in government contracts like construction, but it also invests in smuggling cigarettes, which it makes a lot of money from. And then the Ndrangheta gets stuck into the new booming cocaine trade that is sweeping Europe and North America. And this all comes at a pivotal time for the years of lead and the survival of the so called First Republic that is post war Italy. In 1981, authorities discover a list of members of propaganda due or P2, that fascist Freemason group I mentioned. And they go after them. The following year, Roberto Calvi, God's banker and the bridge between the Vatican high finance and the Cosa Nostra is found swinging from London's Blackfriars Bridge. You can listen to our latest bonus episode for more on that from a guy who's investigated the killing for more than two years. Liccio jelly, P2, so called venerable master, is arrested on the run later that year and the organization is dismantled around the same time. The Red Brigades, the Lefties, they're scaling back their communist assault on the state. They carry out sporadic kidnappings and assassinations, as do the RAF in Germany. Of course, you can listen to our two parter from years back for more on them. But tons of Red Brigade members are caught and they turn coat. And in 1988, after the terrorists snatch and murder a senator, leaders of the Red Brigade declare that their war against Italy is officially over. Somehow the First Republic has survived. It's a miraculo, I think I'm going to guess that that's what the term for miracle is. From this point on, the focus of Italian terror turns to its organized criminal groups. Remember guys, this is the time when famed Sicilian prosecutors Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone are gearing up for the stunning 1984 maxi trial. Another old episode there when 475 mafia defendants are put in the dock and the underworld is biting back. On December 23, 1984, a bomb rips through the 904 train from Naples to Milan, killing 16 people and wounding over 200. Consiglieri for the Cosa Nostra and Camorra are convicted for their roles in the blast. But Ian Drangheta just keeps plowing on, cementing its place in the drug trade and calcifying its power through political, business and law enforcement connections. They don't really even need kidnapping anymore. In fact, the number of kidnappings for ransom across Italy drops from 50 in 1982 to just 8 by the end of the 80s. So it's kind of peaked and then troughed right back to where it was before it even began. And yet when the group sees a chance to strike, it still takes it. They might not be Ndrangheta's main Source of income. But it doesn't mean that kidnappings aren't a useful way to strike terror into the hearts of business people defying extortion, or so called pentiti, those arrested and turning state witness. And actually, while the number of kidnappings drops, the average duration of them goes up significantly. Which brings us head on with the kidnapping from our Cold Open today, which begins in January 1988 in the pretty town of Pavia, south of Milan, where 18 year old Cesare Casera, son of auto dealer Luigi, is snatched by Ndranghetta goons and driven south to their hideouts in the Aspromonte. Eight months later, on August 15 that year, Luigi pays the kidnappers $800,000, which is still a huge amount of money. But the kidnappers then demand $4 million more, moving the goalposts and more significantly, focusing the public's disgust directly on them. And few channel that disgust more than Cesare's own mother, Angelina, who does something pretty extraordinarily brave for the time, and that is to spend 10 days on the road and in Calabria, protesting the Ndrangheta's very own towns and villages, demanding the release of her son. This earns her the media title of Mother Courage. And other women join her on the road in support. For a long time, the kidnappers, though, they do nothing. And around them, the whole world is changing. And this is what makes Cesare's capture so pivotal. A moment for the Calabrian mobile, writes the Cambridge paper. Quote, while this kidnapping was underway, the Berlin Wall fell and the established international order broke up within Italy. The traditional party structure was on the verge of disintegration and the governing political class about to be put in the dock. In brief, kidnapping was burning out during the period when Italy's first republic was coming to an end. Now remember Vincenzo Calia, the bullish local magistrate I mentioned in the Cold Open?
- [30:44]
D
I don't actually. Can you refresh my memory in that of our listeners?
- [30:47]
C
Yeah, sure, Danny, why not? He is a guy who basically is working this case and he's like, I've had enough. I've had enough of the status quo. I'm going to change things legally so that this doesn't happen, right? The guy pretty much goes out against these. And when the kidnappers demand more and more money from the Casellas and it's just like ridiculous goalpost shifting, telling them that Luigi's opening payment is a, quote, first installment, Kalia moves to freeze the family's accounts to prevent them paying any more. This is of course, wildly controversial. I mean, Imagine being told you legally cannot pay the murderous captors of your young son. But Kalia is not even done there. When police tell them. When police tell him, rather, that they won't head into the Aspromonte because it's completely in control of the Ndrangheta, he quite rightly says, screw you, and he christens the special op that will culminate in that gunfight near Carreri. Now, Caglia has ordered remaining carabinieri to conduct raids all over the Aspromonte to ensure they don't get involved in or leak information about the career operation. But this almost causes a tragedy when they get wind of gunfire and arrive on the scene, firing on the kidnappers and the special ops duo in their armored car. This forces the special ops guys to give up on finding Cesare, and they instead focus on the chaos in grabbing Giuseppe Strangio. Strangio, one of the captures. I'm going to say Strangio from now on, who's been shot in the foot.
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D
So we've got the situation here. You've got two different Italian police factions firing at each other.
- [32:28]
C
Yeah, yeah. He's trying to keep. Like, the magistrate is trying to keep them occupied elsewhere to stop them getting involved, but they hear the gunfire ringing out and they get involved, and now everyone's firing on each other. But luckily, yeah, it's. It's. I mean, nothing in Italy at this time is particularly clean. So, yeah, this is a crazy episode. And obviously there is a media wildfire, right, rushing around Kalia. Why has he sanctioned this bloody op? Why has he stopped Mother Courage paying for her son's freedom? And most importantly, why is young Cesare still in captivity? Caglia only has one card to play, really. That is Strangio. While in custody, the mobster pleads for his comrades to give up on the ransom and set young Cesare free. Christmas and New Year's Pass, still no sign of the teenager. But the tension and increased police presence in Aspromonte apparently takes its toll on the kidnappers, because on January 30, spooked by a nearby patrol, they scatter and they leave Cesare chained to a pole in Kerreri. He manages to wriggle free and stumble outside, the chain still hanging around his neck and wrists. He reaches a nearby house, and from there, he's taken to the closest carabinieri barracks. The following day, Cesare returns home to Pavia, where he's hugged and kissed by his mother. Angelina gets honking cars and a cheering crowd of neighbors. It's a wild scene, and as months go by it seems to finally stir Italy's lawmakers into decisive action against organized criminal kidnappings. I should add at this point that Cesare Casella is only the second longest kidnapping in Italian history. The longest of 19 year old Carlo Celadon was also carried out in 1988 and lasted 831 days. But I'll do a bonus on that crime for Patreons. And it was Cesare's kidnapping which took Italy by storm and caused all kinds of criminal legal fallout. Off the back of Cesare's spectacular escape, Italy finally wakes up to how utterly embedded the Ndrangheta is in communities in Calabria. According to one prosecutor, around half of the 4,600 inhabitants of San Luca, one of the most notorious towns, are tied to around 15 mob families involved in kidnap, extortion, and of course, drug activity. Those who are not involved, he says, live in terror, afraid to talk. Officials estimate that mob assassins strike once every 30 hours in Calabria, including witnesses to killings and even local priests. Not uncoincidentally, this is also one of the country's poorest places. With young unemployment up at a whopping 50%, that is never a good thing. In 1991, the country makes the freezing of victims, families, assets a national law, cutting off kidnappers access to cash. At the same time, the United States makes available to Italy its Air Force's satellites, which allow authorities to peer into the aspromonte remote Calabrian villages in a way that they'd never be able to do before. Italy also christens a new 50 man strong wing of the Carabinieri called the Cacciatore, or Hunters. I love that caccia toy. It's just catchers, isn't it? Who roam the Astrante looking for bandits. From that year on, the number of kidnappings for ransom almost flatlines as the Ndrangheta focus all their attention on drugs. And as we know, they do it very well.
- [36:07]
D
Yeah, I mean, I was gonna add, they're kind of more powerful than ever right now, I would assume. And a lot of experts see them as the most prolific and rich and powerful organized crime group in the world right now. Definitely. At least in Italy.
- [36:20]
C
Yeah, it's not even close in Italy. I mean, the, the maxi trial and everything came after kind of smashed the Costa Nostrada. The Camora have kind of ended up as more of like a local thing now. I mean, it's like audience. They've taken over pretty much everything. And these guys, like, they ramp up the construction of bunkers and underground networks in the aspromonte with capos camping out for years in layers whose entrances are concealed in garage floors or kitchen cupboards or very Italian pizza ovens. But the Casella affair has another crazy effect which kicks off at a carnival celebration in 1991 in San Luca. That year kids associate with the barbarians the Nyrto Strangio clan of the Ndrangheta remember the name Strangio. They start pelting rotten eggs and insults at members of the rival Pele Votari Romano clan. Remember Giuseppe Strangio? He was captured in the wake of the Bochkere raid, shot in the foot and cooperate with authorities, so no wonder his comrades are pissed. This results of course in a massive fight during which two members of the Strangio Nietzsche are killed, setting off the so called San Luca blood feud. Four people are killed in 1993 before a truce is called in 2000. In 2005 that truce is broken when a Strangio near to chief is murdered. They respond by shooting and paralyzing a Pele family member while he's standing on the balcony with his newborn child. On Christmas day, Pele assassins burst into a Strangio home and shoot dead one of the clan's leaders wives. Tit for tat for tit for tat. And it continues like this, all coming out of the casella kidnapping until 2007.
- [38:10]
D
I mean, a Christmas Day hit is pretty really wild when you consider just how religious this episode is.
- [38:17]
C
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- [38:42]
E
Hey, do you have trouble sleeping? Then maybe you should check out the Sleepy podcast. It's a show where I read old books in the public domain to help you get to sleep. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of classic stories like A Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Prejudice, Winnie the Pooh. Stories that are great for adults and kids alike. For years now, Sleepy has helped millions of people catch some much needed Z's, start their next day off fresh and discover old books that they didn't know they loved. So whether you have a tough time snoozing or you just like a good bedtime story, fluff up the cool side of your pillow and tune into Sleepy. Unless you're driving, then please don't listen to Sleepy Find Sleepy on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes each week. Sweet dreams.
- [39:45]
B
Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast with Benjamin Boster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention, and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Foster.
- [40:35]
D
Southern Italy is and how superstitious it is too. I mean, that is like beyond.
- [40:39]
C
Well, I mean the crazy thing is almost every single killing happens on a Roman Catholic holy day. Like almost all of them, because they're the only time these guys like come out of their homes and gather. So yeah, they are really religious anyway. Since the 1970s, the Underrangeta have built a fearsome presence in Germany, especially the cities of the Western hurricane, an economic heavyweight home to over 5 million people and some of the biggest companies on earth. On the morning of August 15, 2007, a group of Calabrians is celebrating the 18th birthday of German born Tommaso Venturi at the Da Bruno restaurant in Duisburg owned by Sebastiano Strangio, when members of the Pelle Vittari Romano clan pull up and they open fire, killing six people, including Venturi and Strangio. This is really a test. Over 70 bullets are fired. It's the first time an Italian crime syndicate has carried out a revenge attack on foreign soil. And according to an Italian politician, a quote qualitative leap in the San Luca feud quote that this feud finds a second chapter outside of the territory in which these clans move and beyond national borders is an unprecedented and worrying occurrence. The politician adds. Germany is completely shocked by the massacre, which is surprising given literal billions of mafia cash has been going through their major banks for decades and and Germany launches an anti gang campaign called Mafia Nein Danke, which is so, so German. But that worked. The Duisburg massacre puts a pin in the San Luca feud for several years. And in the meantime, the Ndrangheta, of course, just grows. Between 1997 and 2019, the Cacciatore the hunters uncover over 400 bunkers and arrest almost 300 Ndrangheta fugitives as the group rises to become one of the world's richest drug traffick trafficking organizations. If not the richest, maybe San Gore is bigger, says one hunter to the guardians, Lorenzo Tondo, a friend of mine. Top guy quote the underground tunnels are very narrow. A person can barely fit through and must slither like a snake to move. Some are 300 meters long and often lead to sewers connected to other houses. One example is Girolamo Facineridge, a Ndrangheta leader captured in 2018. He hides for years in a mountain shelter, writes Lorenzo, Quote, reachable only after crossing several rivers with an all terrain vehicle and then hiking through trails and steep slopes for 40 minutes. The shelter was completely camouflaged, covered in vegetation. Facineri had lived there for two years in solitude in a forest inhabited by wolves and wild boar.
- [43:34]
D
I mean, some people are just living the dream, you know? I bet he doesn't even have social media. Probably had a really nice garden. Just peace and quiet all day. What a life.
- [43:43]
C
Yeah, yeah, that actually, actually sounds lovely. Okay, how can I sign up to this? There's no more anything. Silence. Anyway, I drifted off. And so the undrained gets are built on their past as kidnappers and bandits, turning that into drug money and turning that into. Into a gigantic empire that spans illegitimate and legitimate enterprises all over Europe and the world, especially Germany, where it has tons of financial interests with its leaders hidden in these mountain labyrinths like actual comic book villains. But our story doesn't end there, folks. In 2021, as I'm sure many of you will know, Italy kicks off its biggest mob trial since the maxi trial in 1984. It indicts 355 Ndrangheta suspects on thousands of charges. This thing is ongoing and some think it could completely destroy the group structure, which, unlike the Cosa Nostra's pyramidal hierarchy, is siloed and consists of these competing clans like we just heard about in the feud. And speaking of that, let's get that feud fired back up, because now we're up to the news story that got me interested in all of this a couple weeks ago. In the wake of the Dwesburg massacre, cops arrest Giovanni Strangio, son of Giuseppe. Strangio had led the Casella kidnapping and helped spur the feud back in 1991. His brother Antonio forges a life down under, building Andranghetta's significant presence in some of Australia's richest drug markets. I mean, Sydney and Melbourne, basically. He eventually gets dual citizenship. But in February 2023, Antonio is arrested in Indonesia, charged with importing 160 kilos of cannabis and deported back to Italy. Then, for reasons I can't figure out, but it's Italy. Strangio manages to find his way to San Luca during this process. But in mid November, he goes missing, which is always bad news in San Luca. And on November 25th, Strangio's body is discovered in a burned out SUV in the surrounding countryside. Charged so badly that he's identifiable only by bone fragments, teeth and a necklace. It looks like the latest chapter in the San Luca feud. And folks in Calabria, they're expecting a bloodbath, says Alex Perry. Quote, if it turns out to be murder, nobody will go to the authorities. But justice will be done inside the Ndrangheta. And the violence is guaranteed to be excruciating. The killers will make it as painful as possible. It may not just be instant revenge, as they are willing to wait until the moment they can cause maximum outrage. So just after a wife has given birth or on someone's birthday, this could reignite a feud that will last for decades, but has already gone back 20 years. At Perry, they kill each other more often than they kill anybody else.
- [46:38]
D
So, I mean, hold up one second. Like, if we can't figure out how he gets back to San Luca after being arrested, couldn't it be that he became an informant and was just kind of released and maybe it was his own people that, that, you know, killed him, who suspect that? I mean, that would be my. If someone disappears into a legal process like that, they're incarcerated and then all of a sudden they show up back home, especially in that world. I assume that would be the assumption that everyone comes to.
- [47:02]
C
Yeah, wearing like an Australian cricket shirt, being like, hey, how's it going? I haven't seen you in 20 years. Maybe.
- [47:08]
D
I mean, I mean, I'm saying I don't know.
- [47:10]
C
Yeah, it's a pretty good shout. I mean, I don't suspect that you get a very small bail for like 160 kilos of cannabis. And I thought you just got strung up in Indonesia for that anyway, so, I don't know, some strings are pulled somewhere, but yeah, watch this space. Basically, Calabria could be due another season of blood laying off the back of a few rotten eggs thrown in 1991 itself. In the wake of Cesare Casella's kidnapping, in the wake of the years of lead time is a flat circle. But now that is all, folks. The tale of how kidnapping made almost broke and then made the Ndranghetta. Again, thanks for listening. And for God's sake, do not Instagram your crimes. Look at my face. I'm on video. How amazing is that?
- [47:55]
D
Successful. Great read patreon.com cinderworldpodcast or sign up on Spotify. And thank you Spotify Studios for hooking it up and taking care of this until next week. Can't wait for you guys to just watch us age and the light go out of our eyes just right in front of you on camera. It's gonna be. It's gonna be terrific.