Ndrangheta

'Ndrangheta is an Italian mafia organisation with roots in the Calabria region of southern Italy, operating across international borders and regarded as one of the most influential criminal organisations in the world. The organisation falls under no single national legal system, but is investigated and countered through international police and judicial cooperation, including by Europol and Interpol.

The organisation's principal activities include large-scale drug trafficking, money laundering, extortion and bribery. 'Ndrangheta plays a dominant role in the European cocaine trade in particular. These activities finance and sustain an extensive use of violence as an instrument of power.

'Ndrangheta is structured around family ties and clans, known as 'ndrine, which gives the organisation an extraordinary degree of internal loyalty and resilience against investigation. It is this clan structure that has historically underpinned the bloody internal feuds characteristic of the organisation.

In a true crime context, 'Ndrangheta is most notorious for cases such as the Duisburg massacre in August 2007, in which six men were shot and killed outside an Italian restaurant in the German city of Duisburg. The massacre was an expression of a long-running blood feud between two Calabrian clans and demonstrated that 'Ndrangheta's internal conflicts were not confined to Italy, but followed the organisation's members across Europe.

Cases such as the Duisburg massacre placed 'Ndrangheta on the international agenda and led to increased investigative cooperation between European countries. The organisation is today regarded as a transnational criminal actor whose activities affect law enforcement in a large number of countries.