The Mafia from the mountains
In a quiet, rural valley in Calabria, with the southern spine of Italy's Apennine mountains rising in the distance, the latest chapter in the country's long struggle against the Mafia is unfolding inside a sprawling abandoned call centre that has become a bunker courthouse.
The trial began in January and is expected to run as long as two years. It is the largest-ever "maxi-processo," an Italian anti-Mafia trial with dozens of defendants, to take place in Calabria.
It includes 355 defendants accused of everything from membership and collusion with the region's ruthless organized crime syndicate, the 'ndrangheta, to arms trafficking and murder.
Most were arrested in December 2019 in the culmination of a years-long investigation that focused on clans throughout Italy and Europe connected to the Calabrian province of Vibo Valentia. Among those arrested were white-collar workers, including former parliamentarians, mayors and lawyers.
Nicola Gratteri, the 62-year-old head public prosecutor who grew up playing soccer barefoot in the local piazza with boys whom decades later he would send to prison, said for him the biggest significance of the trial is shining light on the spreading "grey zone" of collusion around the 'ndrangheta.
