Business as usual for mafia in prison as mobile phones rife, says Italian prosecutor
Imprisoned mafia bosses are calling each other to conduct drug deals and even ordering “punitive expeditions” against their rivals because phones are so widespread in Italian jails.
In an “alarming” situation, there are on average 100 prisoner mobile phones in each Italy’s prisons, said Nicola Gratteri, a high-profile magistrate who is Italy’s most-prominent prosecutor and has been under police protection for years.
Mafia dons use the phones, either smuggled into prisons or covertly delivered by drone, to run their illegal activities from behind bars.
“Mafiosi are able to direct the committing of crimes and order punitive expeditions,” said Mr Gratteri, who spent decades fighting the ‘Ndrangheta mafia in Calabria, in the far south of Italy, but is now chief prosecutor in Naples, where he is up against the formidable Camorra mafia.
“There are mafia prisoners who organise telephone calls with each other from one prison to another. Right now, there are on average 100 mobile phones in every Italian prison. This is the bitter reality. The situation is alarming.”
Mafia leaders’ continued ability to take part in criminal enterprises on the outside serves to “increase their standing” with their lieutenants, he told La Stampa newspaper.
Prison officers recently discovered 140 mobile phones in a jail in Rossano in Calabria, despite the fact that it is supposed to be a high-security facility for mafia dons and terrorists.
The widespread presence of phones represented a chronic “failure” of the judicial system, Mr Gratteri said.
“Mafia bosses are able to maintain their criminal links, giving out orders for crimes to be carried out, as well as enhancing their own prestige. I would absolutely say it is a failure. It is also a heavy blow delivered by the mafia to the state.”
There have been frequent cases of mobile phones and other contraband delivered to prisoners by drone.
In May last year, prison officers spotted a drone hovering near the maximum-security wing of Pagliarelli jail in Palermo, Sicily. When they conducted a search, they found phones wrapped in waterproof plastic and concealed in lavatories.
Last month, Italian police arrested 31 people who were allegedly part of a criminal network that was delivering drugs and mobiles to 19 prisons around the country, from Piedmont in the north to Sicily in the south.
One of the suspects, a 52-year-old man, upgraded the drones so that they could carry heavy loads.
Prisoners were charged €1,000 (£855) for the delivery of a mobile and up to €7,000 for half a kilogram of drugs, including cocaine and marijuana, according to prosecutors in Naples.
Prison officers are also sometimes complicit. A former prisoner governor in Calabria, in southern Italy, is under investigation for having allegedly allowed mobile phones and drugs into the jail in return for the prisoners not making trouble.
In an attempt to confront the situation, the authorities are experimenting with electronic jamming devices that make mobile phones ineffective and using detectors which can find mobiles that are hidden in cells.
Prison officers are being given extra training in how to intercept drones.
But the head of a union representing prison guards said that criminals tended to be one step ahead of the authorities.
Italy’s jails now resemble “telecom centres,” said Donato Capece.
“Ministers have been talking about jammers for some time. Meanwhile, organised crime is at least 10 years ahead of us technologically.”
