RUTHLESS MAFIA GROUP THE ’NDRANGHETA SUFFERED A MAJOR BLOW IN 2023 WHEN OVER 200 MEMBERS WERE SENTENCED TO MORE THAN 2,200 YEARS BEHIND BARS
When Lea Garofalo married Carlo Cosco at the age of 16 in Calabria, aregion in the far south west of Italy, she thought her new husband was afarmer. But Lea was born into regional Mafia clan the ’Ndrangheta –her father was aleader of alocal outfit until he was murdered by arival and her older brother took over the business –and it wasn’t long before she realised Cosco was acocaine smuggler for the Mob.
Their marriage was unhappy and Lea suffered physical abuse at the hands of her husband. In 1992, the couple had a baby girl, who they named Denise. Ten years later, Lea had finally had enough and decided to flee with her daughter. To get the help she needed to make their escape, she gave the police information about aviolent civil war between two rival families, which had already left 40 people dead. For four years, she was kept safe in witness protection, but the ’Ndrangheta finally found her in 2009.
Cosco lured his estranged wife on afamily trip to Milan with promises of reconciliation for the sake of Denise. On the fourth day of the holiday, hitmen kidnapped Lea, and tortured and murdered her before dissolving her body in acid in aremote warehouse.
Even for acountry so sadly accustomed to Mob murders, Italy was shocked by the brutal case. Lea was one of the first insiders to turn against the ’Ndrangheta and break the code of silence and, although she paid the ultimate price for her bravery, it shone aspotlight on the group that has not dimmed. Cosco claimed his wife had emigrated to Australia, but thanks in part to testimony from Denise in 2012, he and five accomplices were sentenced to life for Lea’s killing and the disposal of her body.
“Lea had been in hiding for the best part of adecade because Carlo was trying to kill her,” said Alex Perry,the author of The Good Mothers, which explores Lea’s tragic story and those of other women who tried to escape the ’Ndrangheta. “He played this diabolical double game where he was pretending to reconcile, perhaps fall back in love with her, but he was faking everything. Those entire four days, he was directing his crew to kill her. The ’Ndrangheta is like acult. If you’re going to turn against it, you’re betraying everyone you’ve ever known and your closest family.”
BLOODY PUNISHMENT
The response to Lea’s murder and the ’Ndrangheta’s vice-like grip on parts of Italy took seven years, but in 2019, the authorities were ready to make their move. The police had already carried out 24,000 covert wiretaps and bugged countless conversations of suspected mafia members, and, that December, Italian special force
