THE CALABRIAN CONNECTION

A $440 Million Drug Bust - the World's Largest Ecstasy Haul - Has Put
the Spotlight on the Mafia's Links to Australia.

IT WAS a discreet meeting at Rome's Fiumicino Airport nearly three
years ago. The senior Italian Mafia investigator spoke in hushed tones
as he related an intriguing story. The Italian authorities, he told
The Age, had begun investigating a Calabrian crime network spanning
nine countries, including Australia.

The investigator offered few details and said the operation was at an
early stage. It would possibly be years before the group's activities
were made public.

But in describing the size of the network's activities, he was
explicit. He referred to an earlier anti-Mafia operation in 2004 that
had uncovered the shipment of 500 kilograms of cocaine from Italy to
Melbourne. Compared with the activities of the group he was now
targeting, the investigator said, the 2004 bust was no more than an
"antipasto -- an appetiser".

The investigator dismissed the view of some in Australian law
enforcement that the 'Ndrangheta -- a family-based network known also
as "the honoured society" that has its roots in the Calabrian town of
Plati -- was more myth than reality. He named the Riverina town of
Griffith and Victoria as places where the 'Ndrangheta was still "very
much active in Australia".

He also warned that the findings of the 1979 Woodward royal commission
into drug trafficking should not be forgotten. That inquiry was
launched in the wake of the disappearance of Griffith furniture maker
and anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay, who had upset some of the
town's Calabrian residents.

The investigator also singled out several 'Ndrangheta family groupings
from Plati that had a strong presence in Australia. One of the oldest
and biggest families that remained of interest to Italian authorities,
he said, was the Barbaros.

As the airport meeting drew to an end, the investigator observed that
police around the world tended to play down the existence of Mafia
societies unless confronted with their involvement in crimes that made
headlines, such as underworld murders, kidnappings or huge drug
seizures. His words echoed with renewed authority after yesterday's
dramatic police operation across Australia.

The seizure by the Australian Federal Police of the world's biggest
single shipment of ecstasy, and the pre-dawn arrests of some of the
alleged ringleaders, exposed the easy availability and seemingly
insatiable demand for ecstasy in Australia, with police and drug
policy experts saying that the latest bust, as well as previous big
hauls, has had no impact on the ease of purchase or price of the drug.
More disturbingly, however, the elaborate law enforcement operation
appears to have vindicated the Italian investigator's conviction that
the 'Ndrangheta still has potent roots in Australia and that three
decades after the Mackay scandal a new generation of Italo-Australian
organised crime figures is flourishing.

One of the alleged principals behind the shipment from Italy to
Melbourne of the 15 million ecstasy tablets is a man well known in
Griffith. Pasquale "Pat" Barbaro, who was arrested in Carlton
yesterday, was charged in the early '90s, and later cleared, in
connection to a massive cannabis plantation on a Riverina farm.

The 46-year-old Griffith man is also the son of Francesco "Little
Trees" Barbaro, one of the men named by the Woodward royal commission
as a member of a secretive clique of Calabrians who lived in Griffith
and who were members of, or were linked to, "the honoured society".

While the vast majority of Australia's Italian and Calabrian community
were honest and decent, the commission said the "honoured" society was
based on a "cell" or "family" system and its members were involved in
crime and violence. According to the commission, Francesco "Little
Trees" Barbaro was born in Plati in September 1937. He earned his
nickname after planting citrus saplings on his NSW farm.

His moniker was given to him to allow others to differentiate the
citrus farmer from another member of the Griffith cell also named at
the royal commission, Francesco "Yoogali" Barbaro. Both Francescos had
married sisters of Antonio Sergi, another Griffith resident and native
of Plati, born in 1935. Sergi and Robert "Aussie Bob" Trimbole were
named as the bosses of the group's cannabis operation.

The commission alleged Francesco "Little Trees" Barbaro had made
hundreds of thousands of dollars from "activities associated with
cannabis cultivation" and, along with Trimbole and Sergi, was "between
1974 and 1977, (part of) an organisation comprised almost exclusively
of persons of Calabrian descent, based in Griffith and Sydney, which
engaged in the illicit cultivation, trafficking and distribution of
cannabis".

Justice Woodward also found that this Griffith crime cell was
responsible for the murder of Donald Mackay.

Mackay disappeared in 1977 after he reported the existence of a
marijuana crop to the local police. His disappearance, the 1979 royal
commission and the subsequent revelations that former Labor
immigration minister Al Grassby was linked to some of Griffith's
suspected "honoured society" members, dominated newspaper headlines
for months.

Three decades after Justice Philip Woodward urged authorities to not
allow "the curtain to fall upon the activities of the organisation in
Griffith", police yesterday were back in the Riverina town. It was a
visit many residents -- most of whom, undoubtedly, are honest -- will
be cursing. When police make big arrests in Griffith, whispers about
the Mafia quickly follow.

It was 4am when the AFP cars rolled down the main street and parked
outside the houses of Pasquale Barbaro and his two Griffith
associates, Saverio Zirilli and Pasquale Sergi. Several of the alleged
crime network's other members in Victoria, and elsewhere in NSW and in
Adelaide, were also rudely awoken.

Among them was Melbourne greengrocer Francesco "The Fruit" Madafferi.
Madafferi's name first hit the headlines in the 1990s as a result of
his nine-year battle with Australian authorities to remain in
Australia. A 1998 statement from a Victorian detective was also aired
in the Federal Court and contained the view that Madafferi "belongs to
a crime family involved with blackmail, extortion and murder, and if
allowed to remain in Australia will continue to carry out acts of
violence on behalf of an organised criminal syndicate".

A well-placed police source says the arrest of Pasquale Barbaro,
Madafferi (who in 2006 was allowed to remain in Australia) and other
Italo-Australians does not equate to evidence that the "honoured
society" identified by Woodward exists in Australia.

The network linked to the ecstasy importation included members of
varied ethnicity and operated like a business organisation, with
alliances that shifted to suit different money-making
opportunities.

Still, the source says that the nucleus of the crime network was
comprised of figures with Calabrian heritage and that comparisons with
Woodward's 1979 report are unavoidable.

THE arrests will also give weight to the views of organised crime
experts such as former National Crime Authority chief John Broome, who
has long insisted that the focus on terrorism has led Australian
police to drop the ball on organised crime.

Broome has previously warned that police agencies have shifted too
many resources away from understanding how organised crime networks
work, including those structured around family and ethnicity. His
comments are backed up by another former senior police officer with
expertise in Italian organised crime, who says police need to do more
to understand how organised crime groups operate.

"As it has evolved here, those involved in Italo-Australian organised
crime are in some ways totally different from earlier generations.
That is not to say that they are not secretive, clannish and have the
strength of community to rely on. But the younger generation are not
the same. They do not operate the same or think the same as their
parents or grandparents. The code of omerta (silence) is not stuck
to," the former police officer says.

"The old-school Italians are mostly old men now. But they were always
homebodies within their community and with strong family ties. The new
school are far more flamboyant and visible. They are prepared to do
business with outsiders."

Unlike the Griffith residents scrutinised by Justice Woodward,
Pasquale Barbaro often ventured outside his home. Barbaro, says a
well-placed source, lived dual lives. He was the family man in
Griffith, where "he seemed to always have a wedding or funeral to
attend". In Melbourne, he was the alleged gangster.

While the Italo-Australian criminals of old were nervous about
interacting with outsiders -- "Aussie Bob" Trimbole was an exception,
but even he had Italian roots -- the current crop of crime figures are
prepared to do business with a range of groups.

One prominent figure arrested yesterday -- Rob Karam -- is of Lebanese
heritage and an associate of Tony Mokbel. Karam's alleged utility in
the crime world is his connection to a network of corrupt freight
forwarders and dock workers.

Since the Woodward royal commission, focus on the "Mafia" in Australia
has been sporadic, both in law enforcement and the media. The
distinction between the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, the Sicilian Mafia and
the Camorra of Naples is often ignored.

In 2004, the NSW Crime Commission reported that "the Italian organised
crime network has received relatively little law enforcement attention
over the past decade, yet continues to generate substantial wealth".

For the past four years, the Crime Commission has dedicated some of
its resources to tackling the Italo-Australian-controlled domestic
trafficking of cannabis. But, says one senior NSW police source, "it
is a matter of too many crooks and too little time".

In 2006, another Italian prosecutor, Salvatore Curcio, told The Age
that he was certain that the "honoured society" had its tentacles
firmly in Australia. Curcio was one of the officials involved in the
operation that uncovered the 2004 plan to import 500 kilograms of
cocaine into Australia.

While Curcio jailed scores of Italians in connection with the
importation, no one was charged in Australia. The cocaine was never
seized, despite the Italian police's insistence it had reached
Melbourne's wharves.

It is, of course a different story with the June 2007 importation of
the 15 million ecstasy tablets, with an estimated street value of $440
million. In a major coup for the AFP, the drugs have been seized and
the alleged crooks rounded up.

But no one in law enforcement is suggesting the AFP or other agencies
can rest easy. In comments that should set alarm bells ringing for the
Federal Government and Australian law enforcement agencies, drugs
policy expert Paul Dillon warns that in contrast to other illicit
drugs, large seizures of ecstasy do not appear to impact on the
domestic supply or cost of the tablets. "It is a market that is
resistant to seizures," says Dillon.

The NSW Crime Commission recently estimated that ecstasy can be bought
in bulk in Europe for about 75 cents a pill, sold at wholesale prices
in Australia for $12 to $17 a pill and then sold individually for up
to $50 a tablet.

In his 2006 interview with The Age, Curcio warned that the high
street-value of ecstasy in Australia meant the country would remain a
lucrative market for European suppliers. The Calabrian Mafia, he said,
would continue to exploit the high demand for drugs in Australia and
adapt to the local law enforcement environment. "To think these people
are chicken thieves is a gross error," he said.

It appears to have been yet another prescient observation.