The Underworld Podcast - The World's Most Powerful Cocaine Broker: Inside the 'Ndrangheta with Antonio Talia

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

In recent years, another one of Italy's feared criminal groups has risen above the Sicilian Mafia to become among the most powerful organized crime groups in the world: The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta. Started as a self-defense militia centuries ago to protect against pirates and raiders, the secretive society later morphed into a powerful group of bandits who made their bones through high profile, high profit kidnappings - like snatching the grandson of one of the richest men in the world. Soon enough, though, they wanted in on the real money, which means cocaine trafficking...and that's where Rocco Morabito excelled. Dubbed the cocaine king of Milan, he eventually became one of Italy's most wanted men and went on the run in South America for decades after brokering massive cocaine deals between the cartels and Italian organized crime groups, helping the Ndrangheta control the majority of Europe's cocaine trade. Calabrian crime reporter and journalist Antonio Talia, who grew up in the same area that Morabito hails from, takes us inside the Ndrangheta and the rise and fall of one of the world's biggest cocaine brokers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Punta del Esté Uruguay in the summer of 2017. If you've never heard of it, it's a beautiful seaside city where South America's rich and elite go on vacation or key villas. One of these rich and elite gentlemen,

a model citizen who seems to have a soybean business and deal real estate, has popped up on the radar of the Italian police. He generally keeps a pretty low profile, except for the occasional birthday blowout for his daughter. But he's made the mistake of registering that daughter at a school under her own name. And this has sent alarm bells ringing all over the world. See, that man's been wanted in Italy for nearly 25 years.

And not only just wanted, but like top three or four for fugitives for a country with no shortage of global criminal power players. and he happens to be a major player, near the top of the food chain and the feared Andrangetta criminal organization based in Calabria, but operating on damn near every continent all over the world. The Androngeta started as a secretive defense militia

in the mountains of Calabria, Italy, centuries ago. That's the region in Italy right above Sicily, where the mafia originated. They fought off pirates and raiders, but in the 20th century, morphed into a criminal organization that made it big on kidnapping and ransom before in later years

turning to what else, cocaine. And this guy, the police are hunting, named Iraqo Mordabitu, once dubbed the Cocaine King of Milan, is one of the guys who helped get them big into the game. A criminal prodigy, he was organizing massive cocaine deals between the world's

most powerful organized crime groups before he was 30, sitting down with the Cali Cartel, the Sicilian mafia, and representing the Androngeta. He was international, and he helped turn the Androngeta into Europe's biggest cocaine importer, controlling 80% of the market at times. He's been on the run, though, for years, because despite the slick demeanor, charm, double-breasted suits and ability to cut deals with anyone, he got a little too much attention, then fled for South America. Said Nicola Mora,

head of the Italian Parliament's Anti-Mafia Commission, quote, he was a major architect in the internationalization of the crime gangs and became the king of cocaine brokers. At his rise, over the last 30 years, coincides with the rise of the Andrangetta becoming the most powerful criminal organization in Italy, and some would say the world, operating from Melbourne to Switzerland to Toronto to Brazil. So when the Italian and Uruguay police finally nab him in early September that year in a hotel in Montevito Uruguay, it's a big deal. But the thing is, the guy is just too slick and too well-connected, and he's not going to stay locked up for long. This is the Underworld podcast. Welcome back to The End of World Podcast, the podcast where every week two journalists who have reported all over, myself, Danny Gold, and usually Sean Williams take the listener on a journey through international organized crime. As always, you can get bonus episodes and support us at patreon.com slash The Ender World Podcast, where for $5, you get even more content and great interviews and all that sort of stuff. This week, I am actually not joined by Sean. I am joined by a real Italian who's going to pronounce things correctly for the first time ever.

on this podcast, you will hear Italian words pronounced correctly. That is Antonio Talia, and he is Calabrian. He's going to tell us all about the Njongeta. If you guys don't know, they're probably I mean, I would say the most powerful organized crime organization in the world

at this moment, but Antonio is really going to get into the nitty-gritty of it all and especially what it's like growing up in that area. So Antonio, introduce yourself, tell us where everyone can find you and give us a bit of your backgrounds. Hello. I'm very glad to be here at the annual podcast. My name is Anthony Italia. I'm an Italian journalist. I was born

and raised in Calabria, which unfortunately is also the cradle of the d'undranga. I've been working as a foreign correspondent, but of course I've been working also as a crime reporter. And I've been reporting about the drangeta, especially about its ramifications. and its branches across the world. I've written a book which is called Statole-Ece. His name of a road in Calabria that leads to many villages haunted by the drangeta. And the book has been translated so far in four languages.

Yeah, so let's get that in, is it in English? It could be translated as Route 106. Okay, well, let's get it done. Let's get an English version out here because the people, you know, these books sell well, man. These books, you know, you could be the next, Gamora. We need that. We need that for you right now. But you were telling me about these three snapshots, I think, these three kind of photos

and in situations that really represent the Andrangetta and everything going on, especially about Rocco Morbito, who you're going to tell us all about one of the most powerful crime lords ever. So can you kind of paint that picture for us? Yes. So imagine in the archives of various crime agencies scattered across several nations, like three snapshots taken between two continents in a span of more than 40 years. So we have a first picture taken at the beginning of the 80s,

and this is the mugshot of a young Caucasian man in his mid-20s. He has curly hair, simple clothes, and his dark eyes are staring at the camera. And this picture was taken in a local station of the... carabini in Reggio Calabria, Italy. And then we have a second picture.

It dates back to December the 15th, 1994, and shows a group of six elegant men discussing

outside the club, somewhere in the center of Milan. None of them seems aware to be under

surveillance. Four are identified as dangerous members of the Cali Cartel from Colombia.

The 50s Domenico Molica are well-known affiliate to the Drangeta, the Calabrian mob, but the sixth man, a 30-something in a dapper coat, is unknown to the Milanese investigators,

at least at a moment. And then the third photo was shot on September 2nd, 2017 in Montevideo, Uruguay, and shows a man in handcuffs sitting on a bed of a luxury hotel. Is there is grey, he has gained some weight, but a certain swagger in his eyes leaves little doubt, about his true identity. It is the same man portrayed in the Magshod in Calabria in the 80s and outside the Café in Milan in the 90s. And although his passport bears the name of a one Francisco Capellito Sosa, Brazilian citizen, the joint team between the police of Uruguay, Argentina and Italy

is fully aware of his true identity. Because the man arrested in 2017 is Rocco Morabito, aka Utamunga, a high-ranking member of the Ndrangeta and one of the most dangerous cocaine brokers of the world. Now, these three pictures alone

and comprise the complex, multilayered history of Dendranga, an organization who was once considered a second-rate Italian mafia, and now it is one of the most powerful crime syndicates in the world. Yeah, I think that's

the thing about the Andrangetta, right? people know about the Sicilian mafia, obviously pop culture for decades, you know, generations have done stories on them. And we had a heavy Sicilian population in America. And then we also know now about the Camara, right, because of the book Camorra and the TV shows and the movies. So the Njongeta kind of slips, slips below that. And if you guys don't know where Calabia is, it's right above Sicily. And they're extremely powerful. I mean, we see them mention now more than in international crime reportage in police

Interpol all that they get mentioned as really being global on a scale that I don't think you see the other Italian mafia's in right now but they're also kind of mysterious right we don't know a lot about them I would say compared to the other Italian organized crime group

so can you kind of tell us a bit more about them yes you're right Danny they are a bit more mysterious even if in the last decades I will say the investigators have managed to uncover more and more. But the thing is, let's start from the world. The word itself, Drangeta, is mysterious.

We have to keep in mind that we cannot understand the Drangeta if we don't understand where the Drangeta was born. So we are in Calabria, as you mentioned, which is the southernmost region of continental Italy, is just in front of Sicily. If Italy looks like a boot, Calabria is the point of the boot. And Calabria lies between two seas and the world Drangeta comes from the East Coast, which is on the Eonian Sea, so we are facing Greece.

And the term itself, Drangeta, might come from Greek, because it's Andros Agathea, which means something like the virtue of the brave man. Now, there are many speculations. and legends about the foundation of the organization Rangeta. But one educated guess suggests to consider the shape of these areas of Calabria. You have the sea on one side and the Asperamonte on the other. And Asperamonte is basically the most impenetrable, secluded and wide chain of mountains in the Western Europe. And between the 60th and the 70th century,

When pirates from the other side of the sea, from Turkey or other areas of the Ottoman Empire, systematically raided the East Coast, the Calabrians formed a secret militia or self-defense. The strategy was simple and lethal because each village was split in two. There was a group of houses lying by the sea and another group of houses hidden in the mountains. And even today, if you drive across the East Coast, the route 106, which is the place where my book is settled, you see that every village has two versions, which is Marina and Superiore. One version of a village lies by the sea, the other one lies in the mountains. So when the pirates approached to raid and loot the villages

by the sea, the men from the secret militias looted them in the hills and the mountains, where they had a better knowledge of the terrain, it could easily ambushed the invaders. These secret societies, these secret militias, with a code of silence and blood and oaths and a very complicated structure survived across the centuries to become a rebel force against the aristocracy, then against the central state of Italy, and then eventually, in modern times, they turned into a crime syndicate, which is Andrangida. I mean, it's like, you know, learning the history of how these groups, the Italian groups, other groups as well, sort of came about from stuff that happened centuries ago, right? Whether it's the Sicilian

mafia in Orange Groves or the banditry in Naples and then, you know, other groups, too, Chinese triads. I mean, it's kind of fascinating to see how it develops from these sort of like secret protective societies and emerges from that and then gets into crime. But it's interesting, too, about the houses you said. I have a, I have a friend whose family is Greek and they, she would always tell me the same thing that they had like, you know, the house down by the water and then the house down up in the mountains for when Raiders came. And that was just the way it was, you know, in these sort of like Mediterranean areas where people were constantly shipping and traveling through.

But now, because of that, right, we have the emergence of this colossal criminal organization and powerful people like Rocco Morabito. Can you tell us a bit more about who he was? Yes. Well, Rocco Morabito is somehow one of the purest examples of Andrangetista, which is a main man of the Andrangata, is one of the purest examples I can think of. Because he was born in Africa Nuo,

which is a village with a complicated history of poverty and rebellion and a high rate of affiliates to the drangeta. And I know this place very well because Alphi was born in Reggio Calabria, which is the capital region. the origins of my own family traced back to the same village to Africa Nuo so I understand the dialects

and the culture somehow Rocco Morabito was born in 1966 in a well-known drangete clan the family is called Morabito Palamara Bruzzaniti crime family

and he started his criminal career at a very young age his nickname is Utamunga and refers to a DKW Munga, which is an old German SUV. He used to drive on the streets of Aspermonte. And he knew the streets of Aspermonte, these secluded ballets very well. And he knew even the most hidden parts across this mountain since he was young boy.

And this brings us to a specific kind of crime that enriched the drangetta between the 70s and the 80s, which is the kidnappings. Yeah, I want to get to that in a minute, but I just have a question about the end drangetta and how it works. Is it like a hierarchy where, you know, there's one person at the top or a group at the top and then everything goes down? Or is it like a collective name, like, like Camorra, where there's like a bunch of different competing clans?

I will say that there's something between the two, because you, you don't have a capo di tucti capi okay you don't have a one leader of andrangeta but you have something that is called the criminine the crimine is a circle of about 10 or 12 people which are elected and they stay in their place for almost a year and they are the highest ranking members of the Drangeta. But they do not take operational decisions, okay? What they have to do is to watch over the interpretations of the rules.

They are some sort of, I would say there are something like the, supreme card of the drangetta. Yeah. So if something doesn't work, if rules are not respected, the criminer will act. Otherwise, every family can

do their own business within their own area, which is called Locale. And the the criminer, the

so-called supreme card of the drangeta can only apply the rules when somebody doesn't respect the rules. Otherwise they do not tell to each family how to drive the business. What they do

is to collect the money for all the people that are in prison because this is very important. Every affiliate will receive every affiliate and every affiliate's family will receive support from the criminal organization.

That's fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating. And unfortunately, it works because then every family has a very hierarchical structure on the inside. But maybe we will get more into deep of that later if you want to. Yeah, but just the idea of the Supreme Court, I guess it's how a lot of families work, but it's a Supreme Court and the only thing they do, they don't tell you how to make your money or do anything else. they just make sure that you abide by the code. Yeah, exactly.

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So you were saying kidnapping and some investigators have claimed that the wealth of the entrangeta is based upon kidnapping. Can you kind of explain that a little bit more? Yes, because they claim that the wealth on the dragett is based upon kidnapping because this was like the first phase. of the Andranga somehow. The power of the drangeta today lies on cocaine. But the drangeta entered into the cocaine trade with the money they acquired through kidnappings.

And it all started in the 70s. They will kidnap the son or the daughter of some rich local, or they perceived as rich, which might be the son of a local lawyer or the doctor. And they helped him or her in Aspromonte, until a ransom was paid. So then they realized that Aspermonte was even more secluded for people of investigators from other regions.

So in the 80s, they expanded the business by kidnapping real riches, not people from Calabria, but the shons of important business dynasties from the north of Italy. And they even kidnapped Paul Getty III, which he was the shone of the Getty family.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a famous story. Yeah. It's a famous story. And if today you go to Bovalino, which is a village on the east coast of Calabria, very close to the villages of Saluk and Platy, which are somehow the birthplace of the Draghita. There's a certain neighborhood that, of course, is not written on the wall,

but everybody calls it like that. This neighborhood is called Paul Getty Avenue, because everybody knows that he was entirely built with the money from the Paul Getty Ransom. So this season was seriously a nightmare. I was like five years old, between like five years old and ten years old. They called it the season of kidnappings. And it was a nightmare for honest calibrins and for the rest of Italy.

Because in the 80s, Asperamonte was like synonymous with kidnappings and griefs. And members of the victim's families trained themselves to walls and three. to protest and ask for the freedom of the sons and daughters. Yeah, I mean, Italy was just crazy in the 70s and 80s with, you know, the mafia wars in Sicily and all that. It's just, what a while time. And I honestly did not know much about these kidnapping, so it's really fascinating to hear. Can you kind of give us like a brief rundown for people who might not know, which includes me, about the Getty kidnapping and what that was?

Yeah, basically there were commanders of, usually four or five people who studied the target for even months. They had somehow some accomplices in banks because of course they knew how wealth the target was. And then when they started a good plan, they hacked it. They kidnapped the target, which was usually a boy or a girl, we should say around 18 years old, 20 years old or something. This could happen anywhere in Italy. And then they managed to carry the target in Calabria and in Aspermonte specifically. and the entire situation was dire

because of course these people like Rocco Morabit himself they knew very well all the most mysterious and secluded valleys and roads up in the mountains

so they could keep the the target, the people who they kidnapped for months and months, until they had finally a ransom from the family. It was a real war because, of course, then authorities tried to block the money from the family. They raided Aspromonte up and down with helicopters and jeeps and anything you can imagine.

But we should say that especially in the first phase, the Dragata families managed to get lots and lots of money to this activity. It was hard cash. It was very difficult to find where this cash was cash was stashed. It was very difficult to find where this cash was stashed. free the hostages. And we should imagine that once an hostage was brought to Aspromonte, you had entire villages who were collaborating to keep the hostage away.

Yeah. And in the end, they accumulated enough money to make a good jump. They realized they also had, already members of the family who were emigrated to Switzerland with all this great

loves to you know stash your money hide the money and they managed to start to reinvest the money in the new cocaine trade

yeah and Getty for those who don't know he was one of the the richest men in the world at the time I think industrialist or oil baron and known for being really cheap and frugal and you know there were some weird negotiations with the kidnappers and all that so it was a giant new story those kidnappings um and roco morbito was he involved like did his family start out with uh with kidnappings so uh the morabito palamara brusaniti family from africanamovo rocumarabito family

conducted several high profile kidnappings But it was never proved that it was directly involved. Although his nickname Utamunga refers to his knowledge of the most hidden parts in Aspermonte. And this may imply that he participated to some of these operations. In fact, his first problems with justice arose in the 80s and were related to extortions and drugs. the thing is that Rocco Morabito somehow he starts to embody

the big changes that Drangeta is experiencing between the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s because in one of his first arrests for example he was threatening a university professor for some public procurement business

and he was scout he was arrested in a rather peculiar company because it was with a certain Assan and Walid Kamaiz. These are not Italian names. In fact, these two people are two militants of the Palestinian Liberation Front were also well-known heroin traffickers.

So it was 20-something, but it was really very ambitious, and it was cultivating acquaintances that eventually brought him at the top of the transnational darko trade. and it was exactly the same period and his clan the Morabito Palomara Brutsoni crime family

shifted from kidnappings to the drug trade they realized that the kidnappings era was over because the state the Italian state and the Italian police in the carabiniari they finally realized

how the kidnappings were done. They had to switch to something else to reinvest the hundreds of millions they robbed to the families of the people they kidnapped. And they, imagine this, according to some estimates by Italian law enforcement agencies, the drangeta gained approximately 800 billion slera with the kidnapping.

Jesus. Which is something like $600 million today, which is a good capital, went into the drug market. Yeah, yeah. And they did it collectively. This is another interesting aspect of the drangeta. It is true that every family does its own business on its own territory.

But they tend to collaborate when they see that there's much profit to do. So they evolved from street kidnappers to drug barons. And Rocco Morabito has that specific role in this strategy. Yeah, what sort of role was he kind of the guy who negotiated it? What can you tell us about the role that he played in the strategy? Well, he has a certain, okay, he's charismatic. He's very well known to be. He's a good soccer.

he might also be a charmer and he is very good at negotiations even if we know that he can be very very violent when he wants to to understand his role we also have to keep in mind the history we have to keep in mind that at the beginning of the 90s

La Costa Nostra so the Sicilians wage the war against Italy against the state by killing prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Palo Borselino, our heroes, and they threatened the whole country with mass bombings. And the answer of Italian institutions was very harsh, and eventually led Casa Nostra to become somehow a shadow of its former power. And this is the historical moment at the beginning of the 90s,

when the Calabrians made the move, and they took over. and Drangeta becomes Italy's number one prime organization taking over Kosoostra, because while the Sicilians were busy waging this war against institutions, the Calabrians silently somehow expanded their business and directly approached cocaine producers in Colombia and auto Latin America countries. The thing is that we Calabrians, we have a very long history of immigration across the world. in Canada, in Australia, in the US, and also Argentina in Brazil. So, well, hidden among honest immigrants that were always trying to improve their lives

by migrating in Argentina or Brazil or Australia or whatever, there were always some affiliates to the Andrangeta that always kept the context with the motherland in Calabria. through cousins and relatives and so forth. And Rocco Morabito, according to the investigators, activated several channels through some cousins to contact the Colombians. And eventually, his family, the Molabito Palamara Bruzzanitti, started to import the Cali cartel cocaine in Italy and in the rest of Europe.

So Rocco moved to Milan at the beginning of the 90s. And he somehow started to become more sophisticated. He has always been a charmer, but he started to become more sophisticated. He abandoned all the old simple clothes from Aspermonte. He starts to wear stylish jackets and coats. And some investigators say that his only regret is the accent. Because even if now in Malani looks hip, when he opens his mouth, you can spot him as a Calabrian, even hesitant.

But you have to imagine Milan in the 90s. It was the era of Armani and Versace, the supermodels, the football stars of AisC Milan and Inter Milan. And the thing is that the whole city was packed with cocaine users. And what Rocco Morabito did and his family, the Morabito Palamara-Bruzzanite did, was to take over a very strategic hub, which is the Orto Mercado. The Otomercato is one of the biggest agricultural markets in Europe. Somehow you have to imagine a town within a town,

miles and miles of containers and shops where every night's tons and terms of good are delivered and then distributed between the north of Italy and Switzerland, Austria, the south of Germany and so forth. So the Morabito's, they infiltrated the Orto Mercato, they posed as businessmen involved in the agro trade, they set up legit companies, and turned the Orto Mercato into Cocaine Hub.

And Rocco Morabito is at the forefront of this strategy. He negotiated with the affiliates to the Costa Nostra and the Camorra. He threatened those who didn't want to cooperate with Andranga, and he cultivated stable connections with the Latin American Narcos. And at 28, he was able to speak face to face with members of the Calicartel as some sort of the dranget ambassador. He's solids, he delivers, he solved problems, and every party involved in the business gets a big return for the investment.

He's also very prudent, he's marked, he uses violence only when it is really needed. But when he recurs to violence, he's always merciless and he's very very very, very important. very, very intimidated. So he's basically not even 30 years old, and he's negotiating with the most powerful organized crime groups in the world, like organizing them together, you know, people who don't usually work together, whether it's the Costa Nostra, the Comorra, the Colombian cartels. I mean, would you say at this point that in Milan, he's basically become this sort of like this boss, this boss of bosses?

Oh, this is a complicated question, but it can help us. to define a bit better the structure of the Dundrakega. We have to remember, this is the structure of some strange secret militia born centuries ago that then evolved into a crime syndicate. So he is not a top boss, but he has a very important role. Why we say so? Okay, so the basic unit of Dendranga is called Dendrina. and And dendrina is formed by at least five or six people who are very often relatives.

If you take several drenas together, they form a locale. And the locale is a territorial unity with the control of a certain area or a certain town. To form a real locale, you need the authorization from the top level, from the criminine. You can not go to Toronto or Melbourne. and I'm mentioning I'm talking about Toronto or Melbourne because these two cities, they do have

a locale on the Drangeta. But you can go to Toronto or Melbourne and create a locale because nobody will recognize you. And if you applied in Drangeta rules without consent, you are punished with death. So orthodoxy is one of the pillars of the organization.

Now, every man, every maid man within the Drangeta has a certain rank and a certain role. And the rank and a role must not be confused because roles are often rotating on a regular basis. Because for example, you can be for a while what they call Maestro di Jornata, which is basically a messenger that connects every member, disability

communications and orders. And then after some months you can take the role of the criminer, who is the guy who keeps the weapons in order. And then you're back to Massoi Jornal. or countbile, meaning you keep the sheets in order and so forth. But the ranks are based on a growing holder. So there's a very strict hierarchy, and each rank allows you to do certain things that are forbidden to lesser levels.

Within the racket, you start as a Pichotto, which is basically a soldier, and you have to fall the oldest strictly. And then you become a Camorista, and skardista. Now, I know it's very complicated. Pichotto, Camorista and Zgarista, are the rankings within the Soccet Minore. The Societ Minore means is the lesser part of the Dundranga, which is you do only very street-level crime and very dangerous stuff. You do racketeering, you deal with drunks on a street level, and so forth. After these three rankings, Pichotto Camorista, you can be admitted to the Societ Maggiore. Let's remember, there are people who will never be in their lives admitted to Societatmajora.

But you always have the promise to grow within the society. And in Societ Maggiore, there are several older roles which are Santista, Vangelio, 3 Quartino, Quartino, and finally Padrino. While you are in the Societ Minore, you cannot talk at all with people outside in Drangeta, with public roles. You cannot talk, for example, we state employees or attorneys, and so forth. Once you are in a society Maggiore, as a member of the Drangeta, you have the license to infiltrate all the

environments of society. You can talk with cops, you can join a free mesmering lodge, you can join politicians, but you always have to remember that your loyalty goes only to the Andranga and that all the

people you meet outside the drangeta, you always have to use them as tools for the benefit of the endrangeta. So to answer to your question, it is sure that Rocco Morabito reached the

Socialar Maggi and probably his rank is somewhere between Vangelo and Trequartino which is very high

but he never turned he never managed to become the leader of a family because the leader of his family

is one of his uncles Giuseppe Morabito aka Tiradritto means a straight shooter and Tiradridi his uncle was also a very legendary boss.

Can you tell us a little bit about him? Because straight shooter is just, that's a great mafia nickname right there. Yeah. And Jangetta nickname, I would say. Yeah. Okay. Straight shooter.

I'll give you another great legendary nickname, which is his brother, which is also another uncle of Rocco Morabito, and he's Leo Morabito. and he's Leo Morabito nicknamed Scassaporte

which means a door crusher because you know you can understand the type but anyway Giuseppe Morabito Tila Dito is a legendary

boss because he's basically the one who managed to conquer the Orto Mercado in Milan and to of course with the help of his nephew, Rocco,

to get in touch with the Cali cartel and the other Latin American's cartels. He was very feared. He when he was finally arrested, he was sentenced to a life sentence. He was, he was, basically also

sentenced to a very harsh Jey regime. He could not talk to the outside and so forth because the Italian authorities knew that he was able to continue to hold murders

and other activities even from jail. He was called straight shooter because of course, yes, Tiradritto, he was very well known to be a straight shooter. He was very dangerous with fire weapons. And everybody knew that he had to shoot you only once, actually. At first, I didn't think it was real.

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Texas, Ohio, Alaska, we're up there too. Comfort in, it's calling your name. Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Well, I hope you like my little song, book direct at storeshiltails.com. But so Rocco at this point becomes like the cocaine king of Milan, I think they called him. What, um, where does he go from there? Because they go after him, yeah, pretty hard?

They go after him pretty hard. they go after the whole the whole family pretty hard there's a huge investigation which is called first Fortaleza and then

it will have several names and basically the Italian carabinieri and Italian police and Italian Guard de Finance they realized that the Orto Mercato

was turned into a hub for cocaine that they had to look for the Morabito Palamara Abruzaniti family They arrested basically the highest rankings of the family and either old

pitch shot or Gjornata in a huge operation in 1994 they also arrested a tiradritto straight shooter but Rocco is one of the few

who manages to run away he had a very very good apartment in the outskirts of Milan that morning when the operation is

running. The police and the carabinieri are conducting the operation. They bump, you have to imagine at least 50 officials. They crushed the doors of his

apartment and they found it empty. And he disappears. After a year, in 1995, he has been named one of the 10 fugitives, one of the most dangerous,

10 most dangerous fugitives of Italy. He was charged with, of course, cooking trafficking. They already knew that he had some links to Brazil because in 1992 he was spotted with, he was responsible for basically a very

if I don't remember it was like around 600 kilos of cocaine the transports from Brazil to Italy again with Walid Isakamais who was a partner from the Palestinian Liberation Front and

they The Italian investigators, somehow they realized that his links to Brazil were very, very tight. Then it totally disappears. The investigators, they suspect that he has some very good connection in Latin America. and by very good connection we mean somebody who managed to forge him or also to give him some political, sorry, some diplomatic passport. He disappears. It disappears for more than 25 years, but from time to time, he always has the sensation that he was behind this huge.

traffic of cocaine from certain ports of Latin America, especially in Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, and Italy. And also from this port to certain ports of Europe, because he had also taken context with other drangeta families like the pellevottari from San Luca the Mancuso di Limbadi we are talking about the real aristocracy

on drangetta somehow so it was like the you mentioned you said it was like for a while it was the king of cocaine and malan true but by managing to escape

from the arrest in 1994 he managed to become somehow the king of cocaine between two worlds between Europe and Latin America the interesting thing

is that after he was somehow spotted between Uruguay between Montevideo and every time the Italian authorities tried to reach him

there was always some mistake which somehow led the suspicion that he was very highly protected from some political authority in one of those countries but then he totally disappeared they never

found is hold identity again. They somehow suspect that he had several identities, at least one identity for each one of these nations, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. We have to remember that this is also an area where, especially Uruguay where all this

Latin American countries border and he was able to move across all these borders and to forge new relationships with new clans from

Brazil and from Paraguay and so forth and then finally after 23 years on the run, he was arrested on the 4th of September

in 2017. Yeah, and then he was in and out, right? Didn't he escape from prison for a minute? Yeah, that was incredible. So it was a very it was a very well-designed operation.

You had people from the Uruguayan police. You had people from the Argentinian police and you had people from the carabiniari who were there on the field in Montevideo. It was a rainy evening. They identified him. He had a very stylish villa on the outskirts of Montevideo in Punta de Lester, which is basically, I wouldn't say a gated community, but it's a very high-class neighborhood outside.

outside Montevideo. But it seems because he had some sort of quarrel with his wife. We will be back to his wife later. He decided to sleep into

an hotel in Montevideo. So they followed them. They kicked the door of his hotel room. And he tried to show this passport named

Francisco Antonio Cappelletto Sosa which was some Brazilian businessman under the identity of whose he was living for years and years. But then they took his DNA

and from Italy they confirmed it was Rockamo Rapido. He was arrested. He was arrested. He was led to a Norwegian prison and it spent there like one year. The Italian authorities were asking for extradition. For some bizarre reason, the Uruguay authorities didn't want to give the extradition to the Italian authorities. And then on the night of the 24th of June 2019, after

more than one year in prison, almost two years, actually, he managed to escape with three other people. He managed to escape actually from the roof of the Carceres

Central de Montevideo. He jumped from the rooftop. Of course, he was then they discovered that he had some help. from the inside of the prison. He already had a car outside who was waiting for him, and he disappeared again.

That was 2019, and the Italian authorities, as you can imagine, were baffled and enraged because at the time it was the second most dangerous fugitive for Italian justice, meaning the number one was Matteo Messina De Naro and Rocco Morabito was number two. And they also had new

evidence, they had new investigations. They knew that, for example, a lot of other Calabrian families like the Bellocco della Piana di Giutauro were importing

cocaine due to Rocco Morabiter's great connections but it disappeared again until finally in 2021 it was the end of May the 24th of May in the capital of

the capital of Dejobe in Paraisba so we are in Brazil Finally, the Carabinieri of Ross, which is the Rapporteur operational, which is the elite of the carabinieri, together with the collaboration of the FBI and the DA and the policeia Brazilian, they managed to find him. He had already changed identity, of course, and they realized. somehow that his wife might have been linked to some family of very prominent Brazilian diplomats.

And they arrested him. And this time, the Brazilians, unlike the Uruguayans, gave the expedition very easily. in so the 25th of May to 2022 a year after

some a lesson year after Rocco Moravit was finally returned to the Italian justice and now the king of cocaine of the two words is facing a life sentence

in a Calabrian in a Calabrian jail I know somebody that a law enforcement official who wasn't a plane

that went from Italy to Brazil to catch Rockmore Abito. So they spent many, many hours together. And this law enforcement official told me that

he was very quiet, very apparently he was very gentle he didn't talk that much but he always had the old attitude

of a real drangetta man which is you it is not just that you do not talk to the police you treat them like they are

not real human beings. They are something different. Because you're an drangatista and they are something law enforcement officials and people from the state they somehow

are part of a different species of beings, don't you? It's really old-school. right there. Can you tell us a bit about what it's like first, you know, you grew up like not just in the area, but like in the towns where these guys came from. So when you're growing up there, I mean, are you seeing friends from school or, you know, the fathers of your friends that are involved?

And then to go from that where, you know, they probably know you, right? You grew up around them to being a reporter on what they're doing. I mean, that sounds like it's extremely dangerous. So I grew up in, yes, in this sort of environment. I think I can understand what was going on. My family always took a different decision and decided to lead a different kind of life. And there are many Caribbean families who did this.

You ask me if it's not dangerous. You know, the thing is that Dendrangeta has evolved they knew that I wrote this book they knew what I was working on somehow but I wouldn't say that I fear for my for my health when I say that they evolved

the thing is that they found many ways and more dangerous somehow ways to hit you. So you have had a lot of cases of people

who, for example, have been smearred. They can put you cocaine into your house and then they can call the police for a ride and your reputation

is over. They can involve you into some financial scheme, even if you don't know that, and your reputation is over and so forth. So I think that this is the thing that scares me most. So if one day, I don't know, they will find some cocaine in my apartment, or they will claim that they stole some money. Yeah. Listen to this podcast is false. It's all false accusations.

This is the way that the Dengeta acts now against people who opposite the Dengata. They understand that if they shoot somebody and there's a corpse, this makes lots of noise. If you smear the reputation of somebody and leave them to face legal problems for years and years, the problem is over. and you didn't have too much noise about that.

Damn. Yeah, I mean, they've clearly wised up, but yeah, I mean, that was great, man. So wait, I didn't understand it first. Is your book available in English right now, or is there a translation? No, not for the moment.

I hope there will be a translation soon. For the moment, it has been translated into French and German and Hungarian and Polish. Well, we should get it here, man. I mean, there's enough book publishers that listen to this. And it's all about your experience,

A, growing up with the Andrangetta, and then reporting on them as well, and it sounds like a history, too. No, it's really. But, yes, I start with some family history, but then it is about the dendranget itself and how it grew in Toronto, in Melbourne,

and in how, how the Drangeta manages to do some only laundering in Hong Kong, for example, how they strike some deals with the Cartel del Galfour in New York City. But then everything in the book leads back to 104 kilometers, which are these 104 kilometers of the Route 106, which is the title of the book, because this is the cradle of the phenomenon. And even if there's some huge drug deal in Melbourne or in Toronto, or there's a war in Toronto or Montreal, if you go back to the family names, all the family names trace back to this route 1026.

Yeah, I mean, it's amazing, man. I hope someone here smartens up, someone listening to us and publishes it in English in the States. Yeah, that was great. Tell people where can they find you, where can they reach out to you or email you? What are you on social media? Yes, I'm on Twitter. Antonio Talia, A-N-T-O-N-I-O-T-O-N-I-O-T-L-I-A. Or on Instagram, my Instagram is Antonio Talia 7-7. Awesome, man. Thank you. Thank you so much.

And what's the title of the book again? Root 100. seeks. Awesome. All right. Thanks and everyone else. You know, tune in next week. Sean will be back. And as always, patreon.com slash inner world podcast. Email us at the Underworld

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