Two Italian mafia bosses jailed for thirty years, politician also convicted | Abroad

The convicted politician is Giancarlo Pittelli. He sat in parliament on behalf of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing Forza Italia party. Prison sentences for membership of a criminal organization have also been handed out to former police officers, among others.

In total, about two hundred suspects have been convicted. The lowest prison sentence was several months. The judge took one and a half hours on Monday to pronounce all sentences. The defendants watched via a livestream from prisons throughout Italy.

The case against 338 alleged mafia members and their assistants began in 2021. The judge has so far agreed to the demands of prosecutors in most cases, who argued for a total of 4,700 years in prison. The charges filed included membership of a criminal organization, murder, drug trafficking, money laundering and bribing government officials.

Evidence in the case was provided by more than fifty former members of ‘ndrangheta. They have broken their obligation of silence. Many of them are in a witness protection program. The trial in the Calabria region, where ‘ndrangheta comes from, is one of the biggest Italian mafia cases in decades.

The ‘ndrangheta, which consists of around 150 families, is Italy’s third largest mafia organization, after the Cosa Nostra and Camorra. The cocaine trade in Europe is said to be largely controlled by this organization. Annual turnover is estimated at 55 billion dollars (approximately 50.3 billion euros).