Fears of latest mafia massacre as son of Italian household dubbed The Barbarians is ‘discovered useless in a burned out SUV’… with final feud sparking DECADES of tit-for-tat assassinations together with a spouse shot useless on Christmas Day

On Nov 25, 2024

Published: 01:59, 25 November 2024 | Updated: 08:34, 25 November 2024

The probable murder of the son of an Italian mafia boss has sparked fears it could reignite a ‘hellish’ feud between two clans of ‘Ndrangheta mobster families.

Farmer Antonio Strangio has been missing for more than a week after his burnt out SUV was found in the countryside near San Luca.

Charred bone fragments, a necklace, and some teeth were found in the vehicle.

Italian police are trying to ascertain whether they belong to the missing father-of-four, 42, but his family appear to believe they do and have already posted death notices.

Calabrian journalist Michele Albanese says the situation could turn ‘hellish’ if Strangio was killed as he said ‘at the very least the community has been plunged back into fear’.

Notorious mobster Santo Vottari was sentenced in 2017 to 10 years two years after he went on the run for the killings.

Antonio Strangio has been missing for more than a week after his burnt out SUV was found in the countryside near San Luca

Italian police are trying to ascertain whether the remains belong to the missing father-of-four

A view of San Luca village in the southern region of Calabria taken on 16 August 2007

Strangio was part of the Nirta-Strangio clan but belonged to another branch of the family called ‘the barbarians’, reported The Times, which are known for their ferocity.

His father Giuseppe Strangio, 70, was involved in the kidnap for ransom of Cesare Casella in Pavia in 1988, who was aged 19 at the time.

He was held captive for more than two years before his release. Strangio was arrested after being wounded in the foot during a shootout with police.

Antonio Nicaso, a professor of organised crime at Rome university, said: ‘If this was an attack on the Strangios, repercussions would be inevitable. Their “inquiries” are not as slow as those of the police,’ he told La Repubblica.

‘We will know soon enough. The ‘Ndrangheta has always known how to communicate effectively without using many words.’

Notoriously ruthless, the ‘Ndrangheta has surpassed Sicily’s Cosa Nostra and the Naples-based Camorra in influence thanks to its control of Europe’s cocaine trade.

Notorious mobster Santo Vottari was sentenced in 2017 to 10 years two years after he went on the run for the killings

An image grabbed from a video handout by the press office of the Italian Carabinieri Police Forces on December 19, 2019 shows an undated meeting of bosses of the southern ‘Ndrangheta mafia

The organisation is made up of numerous village and family-based clans based in the rural, mountainous and under-developed ‘toe’ of Italy’s boot.

The name ‘Ndrangheta comes from the Greek for courage or loyalty and the organisation’s secretive culture and brutal enforcement of codes of silence have made it very difficult to penetrate.

But authorities claimed a major breakthrough in 2016 when they captured Ernesto Fazzalari, whom they described at the time as the last senior ‘Ndrangheta fugitive still at large.

Who are the ‘Ndrangheta mafia?

The crime syndicate originates from Calabria, the impoverished southern region at the tip of Italy’s boot. The name is believed to come from the ancient Greek words andros and agathos, meaning brave or valiant man.

They expanded substantially from the 1970s. During this time, one of its main activities was perpetrating kidnappings and reinvesting ransom money into public work projects and drug trafficking, especially cocaine.

The ‘Ndrangheta kidnapped dozens of high-profile victims, including celebrities such as John Paul Getty III, the heir to US oil family. He was abducted off the streets of Rome in 1973 and held prisoner for five months in the Calabrian mountains.

The syndicate cut off Getty’s right ear in a desperate attempt to get his family to pay the reported £2.1m ransom. His harrowing story was later recounted in Ridley Scott’s film All the Money in the World and in the Danny Boyle TV series Trust.

Italian research group Eurispes valued the ‘Ndrangheta’s annual turnover in 2008 at an astounding €44 billion euros (£38,32 billion), about 3 per cent of Italy’s gross domestic product at the time. They have reportedly expanded to more than 40 countries worldwide and continue to grow at a steady rate.

The syndicate is alleged to have a role as a major smuggler of cocaine from Latin America to Europe. It is also thought to make money from illegal waste trafficking, racketeering and loan sharking, typically offering credit to struggling businesses and then gradually taking control of them.

Millions of euros are spent in an effort to disrupt the numerous global networks of the notorious ‘Ndrangheta mafia. Recent operations against the syndicate include the pan-European operation Eureka. This led to a raid in early May that saw more than 100 arrests and alleged that mobsters used Chinese money brokers .

In 2021, Italian authorities made domestic progress against the ‘Ndrangheta arresting more than 320 suspected mobsters and associates and convicting 70 of them up to 20 years.

The syndicate is no stranger to violence. They made headlines in 2007, when six men were shot outside a pizzeria in the western city of Duisburg, Germany as part of a long-running war between rival mafia clans.

The notorious San Luca feud between the Pelle-Vottari and Nirta-Strangio families started with a carnival prank in 1991 that prompted a string of killings, including the 2006 Christmas Day execution of the wife of a Strangio family mobster. Notorious mobster Santo Vottari was sentenced in 2017 to 10 years two years after he went on the run for the killings.

The ‘Ndrangheta were also held accountable for the murder of Italian mother Maria Chindamo. The mother of three disappeared from her farm in Calabria in southern Italy in May 2016 after she refused offers to buy her land made by the mafia. It later emerged she was murdered and her body fed to pigs by a ‘Ndrangheta mobster.