UhOh..Putin's party offices were on fire, just hours after Mob Boss Cortese flips in Italy

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**Not saying for certain there's a connection between the 2 incidents, (just coincidental perhaps) BUT This Mob Story is damned fascinating nonetheless.


FILE UNDER, "KNOW YOUR MOBSTERS"

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REGGIO CALABRIA, NOV 11 - The acting boss of one of the most powerful clans in Italy's richest and most powerful mafia, the Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta, has started collaborating with police from his prison cell, police said Wednesday.

This is a major breakthrough as he is the first 'Ndrangheta boss to help police.
The Calabrian organisation's rule of silence or 'omertà' is even tighter than that of Cosa Nostra in Sicily, its older but less powerful cousin.
Maurizio Cortese, considered to be the 'regent' of the Serraino clan, has decided to become a confidential informant, judicial sources said.
Police said they hoped his turning state's evidence will help them fight 'Ndrangheta, which controls the European cocaine trade and has infiltrated the economies of Italy and many other countries. (ANSA).
******

Just Who Is The Calabrian Organisation?
FROM 2007...LATIMES:

https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-cocainearchive-dec272007-story.html?_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true

Little-known mafia is cocaine ‘king’
BY TRACY WILKINSON
DEC. 27, 2007

GIOIA TAURO, ITALY — Europe is fast overtaking the U.S. as the leading destination for the world’s cocaine, and a single Italian mafia is largely responsible.

The ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate, a ruthless and mysterious network of 155 families born in the rough hills here in southern Italy’s Calabria region, now dominates the European drug trade. By establishing direct ties with Colombian producers and building a multibillion-dollar empire that spans five continents, the syndicate has metamorphosed into one of the craftiest criminal gangs in the world, authorities say.

“ ‘Ndrangheta is king,” said Sabas Pretelt de la Vega, a former Colombian interior minister who is his country’s ambassador to Rome.

The ‘Ndrangheta (pronounced en-DRAHN-geh-tah) peculiarly combines the modern skills of multinational-corporation high finance with a stubborn grip on archaic rural traditions.
Some members live in garishly opulent villas outside Madrid and invest in bustling restaurants and hotels in Germany, whereas others, including key bosses, remain in the dreary, closed Calabrian mountain villages of their birth.
It is a mafia of businessmen in Dolce & Gabbana, of sheepherders in scruffy woolens.