FBIS3-58025
"drweu000__a94023"
FBIS-WEU-93-000-A
Document Type:Daily Report
2 December 1993
ANNEX
Italy
Calabria Judge Seen as Likely Target of Bomb Attack
BR0701100994 Rome ANSAMAIL Database in English 1555 GMT 6
Jan 94--FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
BR0701100994
Rome ANSAMAIL Database
Language: English
Article Type:BFN
[Unattributed article: "'Ndrangheta Informant Warns of
Explosives"]
[Text] Reggio Calabria, 6 Jan (ANSA) -- Police in the
Calabrian capital were searching for 350 kg of explosives that a
'ndrangheta [Calabrian Mafia-style organization] informant had
warned them were going to be used in an attack on a Reggio
magistrate.
That search was concentrated today in an area near the
Ionian
coast about 30 km from the capital, investigators said.
A likely target of the reported plan was Giuseppe Verzera,
assistant district prosecutor of Reggio, who has conducted some
of the most important inquiries into organized crime in that
region.
Police said they had obtained the information from several
members of 'ndrangheta gangs who had decided to cooperate with
the authorities, including one informant who only recently began
to talk to police.
This source told investigators that the explosive (of the
same type used in deadly car bombs that blew up in Florence,
Milan and Rome last spring and summer) was in the hands of the
Calabrian crime organization as well as how they intended to
employ it.
In a search last July, Carabinieri found 50 kg of explosives
hidden in a field near Montebello Ionico, an area considered to
be under the control of the Iamonte clan. That crime group was
recently badly hit in a major dragnet on December 6, under the
coordination of Verzera.
The growing role of the 'ndrangheta in national organized
crime circuits, both alone and in cooperation with the Sicilian
Mafia was underlined in a report on crime filed by the
Anti-Mafia Investigating Directorate (DIA) to parliament
yesterday.
The national anticrime police unit said that the Calabrian
'ndrangheta has been expanding rapidly since 1991, when Sicilian
Cosa Nostra representatives intervened among warring Calabrian
rings to negotiate a "pax mafiosa" that led to a steep decline
in interclan murders and a much improved capacity for illicit
business.
(DIA cited the 20 percent in Calabria's gangland killings in
1992, with inter-gang deaths continuing to fall this year.) [as
published]
Investigators linked the 'ndrangheta's spread to the tight
network of secret masonic lodges in the region of Calabria,
first brought to the attention of law enforcement officials by
the Palmi public prosecutor's office, then under the direction
of Judge Agostino Cordova. One third of all southern Free Masons
live in Calabria, investigators estimate, and they are stepping
up their inquiries into the links between criminal activity and
the secret and semi-secret lodges.
In the province of Reggio Calabria alone, some 3,500 persons
have been identified as 'ndrangheta members, while the whole
region numbers 155 clans and at least 5,500 working for
organized crime. Catanzaro and Cosenza were cited as other major
crime centers.
'Ndrangheta activities include extortion (with 368 related
cases of arson in 1992), usury, kidnaping and drug traffic. The
DIA report cites the spread of Calabrian crime activities to
Northern Italy as well as abroad to Canada, the U.S. and
Australia.
In the past six months, 890 detentions or arrests have been
ordered, including 524 regarding the 'ndrangheta, as compared to
269 orders regarding the Sicilian Mafia, 62 involving the Sacra
Corona Unita [United Holy Crown -- Pugliese Mafia-style
organization] of Puglia and 35 involving the Camorra.