Mob forging new Australian links

CANBERRA - The Calabrian mafia remains alive and well in Australia, despite official hopes its influence had been waning, a report to the Italian Parliament has confirmed.

The latest annual report of the National Anti-Mafia Directorate identifies several prominent Australian family names, whose linkages to the 'Ndrangheta (Honoured Society) have been alleged since the landmark Woodward Royal Commission three decades ago.

"The links with the mafia families are steadfast and deeply rooted in Australia where traditional links with the Calabrian clans have been solidly established," the report, obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald, said.

The report follows growing concern in Australia about the extent and increasing sophistication of organised crime, including the 'Ndrangheta and other Italian mafia, and crime groups from Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia.

These have joined - and sometimes worked with - local crime and bike gangs. The latest report by the Australian Crime Commission said organised groups had transnational connections in areas such as illicit drugs, large-scale money laundering and financial crimes.

Operating in multiple crime markets, they intermingled legitimate and criminal enterprises in operations that in 2008 were estimated to have cost the nation at least A$10 billion ($12.9 billion).

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Italian directorate said strong Australian links to the mafia had been confirmed by recent investigations carried out by anti-mafia prosecutors in the Calabrian cities of Catanzaro and Reggio Calabria.

Several powerful Calabrian families had "active affiliates" in Australia, including the Sergi, Barbaro and Papalia clans, the report said. These clans had been active in Australia for some time.

The Barbaro name was prominent among those arrested in a A$440 million drug operation in which ecstasy had been concealed in tins of tomatoes shipped from Italy to Melbourne. The August 2008 bust was at the time the world's biggest for the drug.

Pasquale "Pat" Barbaro is alleged to have been one of the key men in the operation, earlier charged but later cleared of participation in a huge cannabis plantation in Victoria's Riverina region.

Barbaro is the son of Francesco "Little Trees" Barbaro, named in the Woodward royal commission as a member of a number of Calabrians in the Griffith area allegedly linked to the 'Ndrangheta.

The organisation gained a foothold in Queensland in the 1930s and extended its reach down through the agricultural areas of the east coast, specialising in the fruit and vegetable industry.

In 2006, the Herald Sun reported that the mafia had threatened to kill the family of Geelong Football Club president Frank Costa unless the Costa Group - one of Australia's biggest wholesale fruit and vegetable suppliers - cooperated with an extortion racket.

The newspaper quoted Costa as saying the mafia extracted 50c a case from fresh produce sold to supermarket chains, reaping millions of dollars a year.

The Herald Sun also cited secret Victorian police reports warning that the 'Ndrangheta had established itself in many legitimate businesses and the organisation had infiltrated and corrupted police and other law enforcement bodies, the judiciary and federal and state government departments.

The Italian Anti-Mafia Directorate has previously warned of the organisation's presence in Australia, reporting two years ago that members there had helped create a network transporting drugs globally from South America and laundering the proceeds.

According to the Australian, the directorate said that the 'Ndrangheta had developed along similar lines to al Qaeda, without a centralised leadership but with tentacles connecting cells in Australia with others in Italy, Spain, Venezuela and Colombia.