The Istituto Italiano di Cultura is pleased to present a talk dedicated to the latest essay by Nicola Gratteri and Antonio Nicaso: Fiumi d’oro. Come la ‘ndrangheta investe i soldi della cocaina nell’economia legale. The book is the latest collaboration of the two most important experts on the history of organized crime: Antonio Nicaso, writer and Italian Canadian lecturer, and Nicola Gratteri, Public Prosecutor in Catanzaro, for years on the frontline for the battle on organized crime. In their new work, the two authors investigate the capillary dimension taken on by the ‘ndrangheta and its actual consolidated economic power, starting from kidnappings in the ‘70s which marks the beginning of the cash flow in the organization’s accounts which help fund the multimillion dollar business of the international cocaine trade. They will touch on money laundry in the legal economy, thanks to public authorities, managers and corrupt politicians and the new strategies adopted in the era of globalization and social media to communicate and impede tapping.
A Q&A will follow the talk.
The event is in English.
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Antonio Nicaso was born in the province of Reggio Calabria and now lives in Canada and the United States. Journalist, writer and scholar of organized crime, he teaches the Social History of Organized Crime in Canada at Queen’s University and Mafia, Culture and the Power of Symbols, and Rituals and Myth at St. Jerome University, Waterloo. He is associate director of the Scuola Italiana at Middlebury College at Mills, in California and he is President of the Centro Scuola e Cultura in Toronto. He has written 32 books on organized crime, 13 of which together with Nicola Gratteri. One of his books, Bad Blood inspired the homonymous successful television series screened on City TV. His research has dealt with a comparative analysis on Italian and foreign mafias, with reference to joints strategies in illicit activities, such as drug trafficking and money laundering. In 1995 he published Global Mafia, a book that for the first time introduced and explained the concept of criminal partnership; in 2010 he published “La mafia spiegata ai ragazzi” (Mafia explained to children). He is also member of the International Advisory Council of the Istituto italiano di Studi Strategici Nicolò Machiavelli (Italy).