From 2019, but still relevant, Bonaventura is one of the most knowable guys who turned.
The Netherlands is one of the most contaminated countries by the Calabrian 'ndrangheta, due to its strategic location as a transit port for drugs and its investment climate. This is what former mafia leader Luigi Bonaventura says in an exclusive interview in the program Criminal Circles on NPO Radio 1.
“All in all, the Netherlands is a good territory for business, for investments. There are many opportunities. It is one of the most contaminated countries. My top three would be: Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands,” says Luigi Bonaventura. Until 2007, he led some 200 mafiosi in southern Italy for the 'ndrangheta. After that, he became a confessor and key witness in dozens of anti-mafia cases. His testimonies contribute to the arrest and/or conviction of at least 500 criminals.
The port of Rotterdam is of strategic importance. As a mafia boss, Bonaventura led criminals who organised the drug route through the Netherlands for him. “I want to emphasise that no one can have cocaine arrive in containers in Rotterdam without local contacts. That is impossible. You can only do something like that if you have confidants, who sometimes belong to multiple organisations and who make the arrival, unloading and sorting of the product possible.”
“When you talk about the ‘ndrangheta in Europe, the most important country is Germany, which we can now call its second homeland. We also have to take their presence in Eastern Europe very seriously,” Bonaventura believes.
The mouth of a shark
“The 'ndrangheta is like a shark’s mouth. You have the first row, the most important, then comes the slightly less important, the younger ones, ready to replace them if people are arrested or killed,” says Bonaventura.
Operation Pollino
In the large-scale police operation on 5 December last year, which exposed a European network of the 'ndrangheta, a total of ninety people were arrested, including five in the Netherlands. Three million euros in cash, 140 kilos of ecstasy pills and four thousand kilos of cocaine were seized during the raids.
Bonaventura does not want to deny the importance of the action, but says 'that this is only the tip of the iceberg'. He returns to his comparison with the shark's mouth. " The canals have not been destroyed by this. A route has been disrupted by the action, with some people being caught and others escaping. Slowly, when the dust has settled, the 'ndrangheta will rebuild the collapsed bridges. It would be wrong to think that the 'ndrangheta has been destroyed by this."
Less blood on the streets
“The fact that there is little bloodshed in Europe by the mafias, we know the motive very well. It is in their interest to keep the eyes of the people closed. For the sake of business, they make peace with each other, so that no alarm is raised and people do not take their presence and power seriously, so that measures or laws are implemented in Europe. They are careful, because they do not want to violate their interests and do not want to provoke strict laws in those countries,” says Bonaventura.
“With money you can also influence people who are in the way. That way you can solve the problem differently, with less noise,” Bonaventura emphasizes. And money has the 'ndrangheta. An estimate from a few years ago shows a turnover of 53 billion euros per year. For comparison: that is more than McDonald's and Coca Cola combined.
Multinational of the underworld
“When you consider that the 'ndrangheta is involved in much more than just drugs, such as money laundering, weapons, different types of waste disposal, also toxic and radioactive, with all kinds of companies and sectors, then you can get an idea of ??what kind of multinational of the underworld it is. A very important one.”
“ I also think that they also make people who are not corrupted or convinced disappear in other ways, ways that we cannot always see. I am very convinced that many suicides, many traffic accidents, many cases of overdoses, or people who hang themselves - I am convinced that a large part of that is also the work of the mafias.”
Who is Luigi Bonaventura?
Luigi Bonaventura grew up in an old 'ndrangheta family, in the town of Crotone, in the toe of Italy. His father and grandfather led a mafia organization before him.
Early in 2007, Bonaventura decided to cooperate with the Italian justice system. He confessed to his own crimes. His testimonies earned him a substantial reduction in sentence. He wanted, in his own words, to 'break the umbilical cord that connected his children to the mafia.' “ I wanted to give them real power, and by that I mean freedom. Freedom not to belong to the ndrangheta and the circumstances that come with it. I wanted them to belong to civilized society.”
'Leadership of 200 mafiosi'
“My role was leadership, I was the head of my family since 2001, when I took over from my uncle, who until then was the absolute capo of my family. This phase lasted only a few years, after which I started working with the justice system. I started as the right-hand man of the leader of the military branch, then I became the leader of that branch myself, and then I also made the leap to the branch that deals with politics and business. I had to decide on trade and on assassinations. I had 200 men under me.”
“My collaboration with the justice system began in 2007, after about a year of thinking about that step. I had contacted people from the institutions through various channels to find out how it would go. In February 2007, I told my story to the public prosecutor Pierpaolo Bruni of the DDA of Catanzaro. From that moment on, a long series of increasing collaborations with various public prosecutors began, now 13, including a foreign one. I decided to become a regretter for my children, because I did not want to take away their future.”
