Posted on 08/15/2007 4:52:39 PM PDT by BlackVeil
ROME (AFP) - Six Italians found shot dead in Germany Wednesday were the victims of a vendetta between families in the powerful Calabrian mafia from southern Italy, Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said Wednesday.
Speaking in a televised press conference, Amato expressed the fear of further reprisals in the ongoing feud within the criminal organisation known as the 'Ndrangheta, centred on the Calabrian village of San Luca.
"One of the people killed overnight in Duisburg may be one of the authors of the last crime that took place in San Luca," he said, adding that police were watching the region to try to prevent a "third act".
The feud between rival families in the 'Ndrangheta began with a brawl during a Saint Valentine's festival in 1991 and had claimed six lives by 2000.
After a period of calm, the killing began again in 2006 when the wife of one of the suspected leaders of the clan was murdered on Christmas night. According to media reports, five deaths followed across Calabria.
The bodies of the Italians were found in two vehicles near a train station in Duisburg, western Germany. German police said they were aged from 16 to 39.
Italy's deputy director of police, Luigi De Sena, and anti-mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso said such killings in another country were unprecedented.
"The Calabria mafia has a significant presence in Germany, but until now they have always tried to keep a low profile," De Sena told the ANSA news agency.
Grasso said the six men had probably been sent to Duisburg to escape the vendetta.
The Italian authorities consider the 'Ndrangheta, which is involved in cocaine trafficking and garbage disposal among other rackets, as more secretive and more unpredictable than the famous Sicilian mafia, partly because of its lack of hierarchy.
The vice-president of the parliamentary anti-mafia committee Giuseppe Lumia admitted that Italian authorities had "underestimated" the group's power.
He told Sky TG24 television channel that the danger it represented "is comparable to that posed by terrorism".
'Ndrangheta "has become so powerful that it has no fear of acting militarily or of defying international public opinion", he said.
An update on the Germany shootings.
In Melbourne, Australia, one of these feuds started up, involving Italian mafia and other local crime gangs. It went on for several years, and there were execution style killings all over town.
In the end, the police brought charges and some people were jailed - but no Italians, it was impossible to get evidence against them.
Let me guess. They are in the olive oil business.
I read that this whole feud started over an egg-throwing incident in 1991.
They certainly seem to have moved on from eggs!
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