From the windows of Vittoria Sicari's top-floor apartment in Vibo Marina, a village on the southern Italian coast, you can see the blue expanse of the Tyrrhenian Sea stretching out to the horizon. It's a view Vittoria hasn't seen in 23 years. Back then, she claims, her apartment was stolen.
According to Vittoria, in the late 90s, as she was getting ready to sell the property, a man attended the open house inspection. When he put in an offer, all the other buyers suddenly lost interest. It was the first hint of trouble ahead. But sensing her chance to make a quick sale, she accepted a holding deposit and agreed to hand over a set of keys so he could go inside to measure up.
Vittoria alleges the keys were never returned. The man moved in with his family without paying for the apartment and, over two decades later, he's still there. "He literally stole it," she tells Foreign Correspondent, looking up at the flat from the street below, as someone inside shuts a window against the cool sea breeze.
When Vittoria tried to get him evicted, she claims he was threatening. "This guy told me, 'If you don't stop persecuting me and my family — because this flat is mine, not yours — I'll kill you.'"
For 15 years, no lawyer dared take on her case. Police reports went nowhere. When she eventually defaulted on her mortgage, the bank stopped short of confiscating the apartment. "If this person is so powerful that even a bank and the state are afraid, what can an ordinary citizen like me do?"
The man was an alleged associate of one of the most powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia families in the area — the Mancusos. For decades, the 'Ndrangheta — the Calabrian mafia — have ruled the southern Italian province of Vibo Valentia through violence and intimidation. Those who stand up to them risk their lives, Vittoria says. Some disappear and are never found.
But now the Italian state is fighting back. An historic investigation has put more than 300 people on trial for the crime of belonging to, or aiding, the 'Ndrangheta. Prosecutors have already secured 70 convictions for crimes including money laundering, mafia involvement and extortion. Italians are calling it the "trial of the century". Hundreds more cases are waiting to be heard.
"The state is regaining ground here," says Giuseppe Borrello, an anti-mafia activist and Vibo Valentia local. He says the so-called "maxi-trial" has boosted belief in the state's ability to protect people. After decades living in fear and silence, many are now speaking out. "The number of people turning on the mafia has increased," Borrello says. "[This] is new for Vibo Valencia. 'Ndrangheta people themselves see the time is right to cooperate."
Vittoria Sicari, who has finally secured a lawyer, is among those planning to give evidence at the trial.
"Naturally, I'm afraid," she says. "But if people don't stand up ... the 'Ndrangheta will continue to extend its tentacles like an octopus, and we will never be liberated."
The prosecutor talking to death
Nicola Gratteri, the prosecutor leading the maxi-trial, has been on the mafia kill list for decades. For the past 30 years he's been risking his life to put members of the 'Ndrangheta behind bars. He lives under constant police protection, a life he describes as a "cage".
To meet him, we're told to stand on a street corner and wait. He arrives in a convoy of bulletproof black sedans, flanked by guards dressed in jeans and hoodies, with handguns slung at their hips. Threats to Gratteri's life have only intensified since he started investigating the Mancuso family.
Calabrian born and bred, Gratteri knows his enemy well. He grew up in the hilltop village of Gerace, where he went to school with people he would later put in jail. "I was lucky because I was born into a family made up of honest people," he says. "Had I been born into another family, perhaps I'd be a mafia boss today." Instead, he's the one they fear.
At the city of Lamezia Terme, we arrive at "The Bunker", a former call centre rebuilt as an enormous courthouse. Soldiers from the Italian army stand guard outside with machine guns. At 3,300 square metres, it's the biggest courtroom in the Western world, says Gratteri, with seating for over 1,000 people. "The trial is big because the organisation is big."
When Gratteri took over the chief prosecutor's office in Catanzaro in 2016, he set out to dismantle the 'Ndrangheta in the province of Vibo Valentia. The office he inherited was "dormant", filled with good prosecutors with a desire for change, but lacking courage, he says. "They needed someone to act as a leader, someone to act as a battering ram."
But breaking the 'Ndrangheta is no small task. Once derided by mafia in other parts of Italy, it has transformed into the country's most powerful organised crime syndicate, with an estimated annual turnover of $80 billion. It controls around 80 per cent of Europe's cocaine supply.
The 'Ndrangheta's strength lies in its structure. It's a confederation of hundreds of families, with each clan controlling a territory called a "locale". They "control the breath, the heartbeat of a region," says Gratteri. "Whatever happens in that territory, in that municipality, must pass the scrutiny of those families."
These blood ties make the 'Ndrangheta notoriously difficult to penetrate. Turning on one's own can be a death sentence. "The 'Ndrangheta becomes the meaning of life," says Gratteri. "We have several examples of blood relatives who have had to kill relatives to save the honour of the family and to protect the organisation."
A state within the state
What the prosecutors want to prove in this trial is that one clan, the Mancusos, run a shadow power structure in Vibo Valentia. The clan head, they allege, is Luigi Mancuso, the youngest of 11 children. He denies all charges. "He's a charismatic character," says Gratteri, "who has rubbed shoulders with important people."
Gratteri's investigation aims to expose how the Mancusos and their associates wield power through corrupt politicians, lawyers, professionals, even the police. "We are talking about a state within the state," he says.
In December 2019, after four years of wire-tapping and collecting evidence, the Carabinieri — one of Italy's national police forces — arrested more than 300 people suspected of mafia involvement in a night-time raid. Three thousand officers from across Italy were called in to help.
"Gratteri called all operation leaders into his office," says Colonel Bruno Capece, the Carabinieri leader in charge of the operation. "He told us the operation would have to be brought forward. There had been leaks and there was a risk people might flee."
The arrests were a big moment for the community of Vibo Valentia. Thousands of people took to the streets in an outpouring of gratitude to the Carabinieri. "It was a unique event which broke a series of taboos," says Colonel Capece. "The most beautiful thing is that the population experienced a sense of liberation."
It was a collective act of defiance against the 'Ndrangheta. But those who stand up to them alone often pay a heavy price.
The cost of refusing to bow
In the hills near the Calabrian village of Limbadi, surrounded by olive and citrus groves, Sara Scarpulla stands in a small corner of her farm. This plot of land has been at the centre of a 30-year feud which claimed the life of her only son. What's striking is how small it is; no bigger than a lounge room.
Limbadi is the birthplace of the Mancuso family. Populated by tight-knit families devoted to their land, the community is fertile ground for the 'Ndrangheta. Poor employment opportunities and a lack of infrastructure drive people into the hands of the mafia, which fills the gaps left by the state. Others are coerced through threats and violence.
For years, Sara watched as the Mancusos swallowed up the farms neighbouring her property. "We are surrounded by the Mancusos," she says, pointing to the patchwork of groves in the surrounding hills. "Taken from people. They never paid."
But Sara refused to surrender her land. Four years ago, the feud turned deadly. Her son Matteo Vinci, a biologist and former army officer, was helping out on the farm when he went to get into the family car with his father Francesco. A bomb exploded.
Sara remembers rushing down the laneway to help, but there was nothing she could do. Tongues of fire were engulfing the car. "It was terrible," she says. "To see his father burning there and to know that my son was inside the car."
Francesco survived but Matteo did not.
Last December, Rosaria Mancuso, the niece of Luigi Mancuso, was sentenced to life in prison for ordering the car bombing. Sara says the violence was an act of punishment.
In a town not far from Limbadi, Carmine Zappia also found out just how costly it can be to break free of the mafia's web. He found himself at the mercy of the Mancusos when he could no longer make repayments on his furniture shop in Nicotera.
Luigi Mancuso's brother, Antonio Mancuso, was sent in as a debt collector. He demanded Carmine pay 5,000 euros a month. "From the boss's words, I understood that there would be no end to the payments," he says.
When Carmine could no longer afford to pay, he reported Antonio Mancuso to the Carabinieri. It was a decision that ruined his life. "The town reacted badly," Carmine says. "Since we all know each other, and most people are related, I think more people side with the boss."
He now needs around-the-clock police protection. "Before I was a prisoner of the 'Ndrangheta, I had no freedom of movement," he says. "Now with protection, I have become a prisoner of the state. But it is always better to have Carabinieri following me than mafiosi."
Carmine says it's vital to end the cycle of violence that keeps Vibo Valencia in a state of fear, but that can only happen if enough people speak up. "Perhaps it will really end," he says. "If there are many of us, we do not have to walk with protection."
Cracking the 'Ndrangheta
The key question hanging over the maxi-trial is whether going after one 'Ndrangheta family is enough to bring lasting change. With territory and power split among hundreds of clans, the 'Ndrangheta has proved resistant to past efforts to stamp it out.
Milan-based prosecutor Alessandra Dolci, who has been investigating the 'Ndrangheta for 20 years, led her own maxi-trial which revealed the inner workings of the organisation.
"The 'Ndrangheta doesn't have a commander-in-chief," she says. "But it has a sort of leadership council, which rules on the mafia's national strategies. It's made up of people who are elected to this coordinating body ever year."
It means when one family gets into trouble with the law, another stands ready to take its place, she says. Dolci believes trials alone can't defeat the 'Ndrangheta.
It's a criticism Nicola Gratteri is aware of. But he says it's ultimately up to civil society to "occupy those empty spaces straight away".
For Gratteri, there's no alternative but to push ahead with the maxi-trial, even at great cost to his own freedom. "If I were to stop today, I would feel like a coward," he says. "And for me, it doesn't make sense to live like a coward."
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