“Narcosur”: the alliance between the Italian mafia and the PCC

A portion of Brazil started to speak the Calabria dialect. The most recent investigations by the
Italian state police point out that members of the ‘Ndrangheta, the most powerful Italian mafia,
made deals with the São Paulo factions to negotiate cocaine.

The investigation still investigates the levels of the ‘Ndrangheta’s relations with the PCC, but
everything indicates that the most powerful mafia in Italy believes that Brazil is the new Colombia.

The most important character in the Italian justice processes is Nicola Assisi, arrested with his son
Patrick in July 2019 on the coast of São Paulo. The sentence against the clan indicates that Assisi
"runs and organizes" a group that operates between Turin and Calabria and maintains relations
with South American traffickers.

He is appointed as a broker: he buys cocaine in Latin America and takes it to Italy. That's when
Antonio Agresta comes into action, affiliated with the group of the Italian mafia that controls the
Northwest of the country. He is also an exponent of the Assisi clan, which "has contacts with
buyers from Calabria", as shown by the investigation.

Why is the Italian mafia keeping an eye on Brazil?

The Assisi clan tried to contact Peruvian and Colombian traffickers, but, as it is written in the
Italian Supreme Court ruling, "they had not given sufficient guarantees". For that reason, the
group has made an agreement with Brazilian factions, considered more reliable than its South
American competitors, said the members of the Assisi group.

Italian procedural documents indicate that Brazilian traffickers were willing to lend a Falcon 50
plane to the clan to transport cocaine to Italy. According to the Turin Public Prosecutor's Office,
Assisi managed to import almost 800 kilograms of the drug between May and September 2014.

Brazilian authorities believe that the suppliers of the Italian clan are members of the PCC, the main
faction that operates inside and outside São Paulo prisons. Criminals allied with Marcos Willians
Herbas Camacho - Marcola, leader of the PCC - import cocaine from Colombia, due to the
proximity to the Gulf and Bolivia clan, where the São Paulo drug dealer Gilberto Aparecido dos
Santos, the PCC's Fuminho, dominates the Santa area Cruz de la Sierra.

This is where a lawyer known for rendering services to the PCC approaches the Italians who lived
in Brazil. Patrick Assisi, Nicola's son, contacted Eugenio Malavasi to manage his extradition to Italy.
The same defender had already provided, together with other colleagues, assistance to some
members of the São Paulo faction and also to Bodizar Kapetanovic, broker of the Saric clan, sent to
Brazil to buy lots of cocaine from the PCC, on behalf of his boss Darko.

The Pelle Vottari clan and its agreement with Brazilian narcos

The Federal Police's investigations confirmed what the Italian investigation found and added new
evidence of the relationship between some 'Ndrangheta families and the PCC. In September 2019,
André de Oliveira Macedo - known as André do Rap, who also acted as an agent for Brazilian
players and artists - was arrested in Rio de Janeiro on suspicion of being a member of the São
Paulo faction.

Investigators believe he may be the character who led the PCC's drug-sending scheme to Italy. The
PF suspects that he was the supervisor of the port of Santos, the main starting point of the drug
for Europe and Africa.

Santos' strategic importance is expressed by criminals from São Paulo that Domenico Pelle, son of
Antonio and a member of the Pelle Vottari clan, contacts to organize an import of cocaine. “It is
easier to use the port of Santos for them. The ship arrives, loads and leaves, ”says Domenico, in an
interception.

To “start this collaboration” with 'Ndrina (the name used to refer to a' Ndrangheta family), São
Paulo traffickers do some tests to see if the Calabrians can recover the drug at the port of Gioia
Tauro, the main port of entry for the cocaine in Europe.

Contacts between Brazilian criminals and 'Ndrangheta men were facilitated by two other Italians
who lived in Brazil. Investigations by the Italian state police have yet to identify these two
characters.

Negotiations always take place on an equal footing between the two groups. When the money
was handed over, the traffickers informed Pelle of the identification number of the container
where the cocaine was hidden. Domenico Pelle, showing the investigation of the Italian police,
made two trips to Brazil, between 2016 and 2017, to directly arrange the sending of the drug with
traffickers from the coast of São Paulo.

The Italian judges, in the sentence that took the young clan chief to jail, could not understand
whether the Brazilian traffickers were members of the PCC, but the procedural documents
underline “a current criminal welding between the families of the 'Ndrangheta and the mafia clans
other areas ”.

Federal Police sources, as reported by the Insight crime, argue that the Pelle found the PCC's
representatives. In one of these meetings, Fuminho, Marcola's right-hand man, would have
participated. He is the drug lord in Bolivia, where he lives protected by some corrupt agents of the
National Police.