Accedi
Dirty business, cocaine bought directly from drug traffickers, infiltrations into the state apparatus. This is the subversive force of the 'Ndrangheta in a country where rivers of money are poured into the legal economy amid blood oaths, burned holy cards and the mafia bourgeoisie. This is what the 2022 National Anti-Mafia Commission report says. It is the night between 14 and 15 August 2007 when, in Duisburg, Germany and Europe discover the enormous potential of such an organization now becoming global or - as Bauman would define it - "liquid". Such a liquidity also allowed it to permeate politics. The data from Calabria is alarming: between 1991 and 2022, 130 municipalities were dissolved owing to mafia's infiltration, 10 were in the only province of Crotone, among which the municipality of Isola di Capo Rizzuto twice, on 9 May 2003 and 22 November 2017 (dyn. inf.). Here the 'ndrina of the Arena rules. The "Grande Drago", "Scacco Matto" and "Ghibli" operations have ascertained its ramifications in Emilia Romagna, Veneto and Lombardia. The presence of the 'Ndrangheta in a region like Calabria, which according to 2020 Istat data, records the highest relative poverty values at 20,8%, demonstrates that it has not been possible in these territories to improve people’s living conditions through the cohesion funds. At Punta Cannone a white house stands out on the cliff. It belonged to Nicola Arena, one of the most powerful boss of the 'Ndrangheta, and was confiscated on 14 October 1997. On 20 August 2001, the State Property Agency sent notices of eviction. On 24 October of the same year, the Municipality of Isola indicated to the agency the destinations of the confiscated assets. A decree of 29 March 2002 from the State Property Agency provided the transfer of the confiscated property to the Municipality for social purposes (dyn. inf.). The structure should have become a research centre for the protection of marine species, since one of the largest marine reserves in Europe is located in this area. In 2012, however, a different project for its requalification was approved. It is planned to create a climatic colony for disabled people, in adherence to the objective of social inclusion and fight against illegality set in the POR CONV FESR Calabria program 2007-2013 (stat.inf. fig.2) by which € 382.980,05 have been allocated to the Municipality. The planner is the Calabria Region, the municipality of Isola di Capo Rizzuto is the beneficiary and implementer. The general objective of the QSN was to promote an inclusive society and guarantee conditions of security in order to permanently improve the context conditions which most directly support development. The intervention will be started by the council led by the former mayor G. Bruno, but, when the work is almost completed, the building, never assigned, will be vandalized many times (image of the report). The start of the project was scheduled for 31 January 2012, and the end for 15 June of the same year (stat. inf.fig.4). The first down payment of 30% was requested by the municipality in 2011; the last payment dates back to 2016 with an increase in spending up to € 416,457.59 (stat.inf. fig.1-3). In 2018 the Prefect Mannino, appointed after the second commissioner of the Municipality, orders the assignment of 15 confiscated assets. These include the vandalized villa of Nicola Arena to the Kroton Community Onlus. In the document on the state of confiscated assets published in 2021, it is said that the association has presented a project of national value and is waiting for the outcome. Yet, in the programmatic document for the three-year period 2019-21 the current municipal administration still expects the construction of a climatic colony in that building on "sheet 31 parcel 12". Today, what remains of that asset, whose requalification project has taken 15 years from its final confiscation, are only doors cut open, broken windows and shattered glasses (dyn. inf.). The land surrounding the villa has become a landfill to the point that, following the monitoring action of the Landclaim3rs, M.Corrado, a member of the National Anti-Mafia Commission, has finally reported to the competent authorities the presence of asbestos slabs. For years, in that two-flour house that hasn't become a symbol of the fight against the mafia, no one dares to enter. The 'Ndrangheta, Florida prosecutor J. Tingwall said, seems invisible like the other side of the moon but, it exists, it presides over the territory and thinks globally, conquering an entrepreneurial role and a political relevance. Thus, as it happens here, it also becomes a social subject, contributing to giving drugged answers to people’s needs remaining unsatisfied by the limits and the absence of public policies. The story of this confiscated property tells us that confiscation alone is not enough. And that, bad management has made community funds a consumer good devoured by a few and unable to produce the common good.
