In a particularly ugly mob hit two men on a motor scooter gunned down Massimiliano Spelta, a wealthy entrepreneur with no criminal record, and his Dominican girlfriend who was holding their 18-month-old daughter as the couple walked along a busy Milan street as reported by Reuters. The toddler was the only one to survive the attack.
In recent years the 'Ndrangheta has migrated from Italy's southern Calabria region into wealthier northern cities including Milan in the Lombardy region where illicit profits from the cocaine trade are laundered.
The 'Ndrangheta dominates the European cocaine trade, and has established itself in the United States, Canada and Australia with little push back from those countries.
Some mob watchers believe that 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia clans from New York City and Quebec are responsible for the ongoing mob war against the Rizzuto clan from the Sicilian Mafia in Montreal, QB Canada for control over the drug trade.
The 'Ndrangheta also has developled a partnership with the Mexican cartels in the United States for moving cocaine from New York City into Italy. Nicola Gratteri, a top anti-Mafia prosecutor in Italy warns that "this mafia is quickly spreading in the United States, particularly in Florida and New York" as reported by Beatrice Borromeo for The Daily Beast: "Gratteri's latest operations . . . uncovered a new route in the mafia's international drug trade, centered in New York City, where the crime syndicates can secure easy access to cocaine shipped in by Mexican cartels."
Meanwhile, Italian authorities today arrested 37 suspected Calabrian mobsters in raids around Milan on various charges including extortion, loansharking, weapons possession and Mafia association as reported by Adnkronos.
