Quotes of the Day

Gunning down Francesco Fortugno in front of dozens of bystanders was cold-blooded enough, but the hit man's next move was even more chilling. As Fortugno, a leading politician in Italy's deep-south region of Calabria, crumpled to the floor with five bullets in his torso, the masked attacker lowered his handgun and strolled calmly through the exit of the local polling station to a waiting car. The bleeding 54-year-old former physician and father of two, who had just voted in Italy's center-left coalition primary, died minutes later at the same Locri hospital where he had once worked.

The callous nature of the murder marked it unmistakably as a professional hit by Calabria's powerful crime syndicate, the 'Ndrangheta, a word of Greek origin meaning courage or loyalty. The message was just as clear: We're in charge here. The gangland execution of the respected Vice President of the Regional Assembly as he cast his vote was a warning that no one is safe, particularly not politicians like Fortugno who might have ideas about changing the status quo. The Bishop of Locri, Giancarlo Bregantini, noted that there were "two places in the world where they shoot at the polling stations: Iraq and Calabria." Though the outcome of the vote wasn't at issue in Calabria, the polls provided a perfect setting for the mob to make its point. "This murder was carried out for maximum political symbolism," says Agazio Loiero, Calabria's Governor, who has received multiple death threats since gaining office last spring. "The killers want to show that they can strike anyone, anywhere, at any time — that the territory of Calabria is under their control."

At the packed funeral service for Fortugno, attended by national politicians and mayors from across southern Italy, Bregantini declared: "This isn't just about Locri. All of Italy's political autonomy is at stake." The high-profile murder has raised fears in Rome that the growing brazenness of 'Ndrangheta could escalate into a bloody war against national authority, like the one that erupted in the 1980s when the Cosa Nostra sought to tighten its hold on Sicilian society and politics.

Life is already bleak on this southern tip of Italy's boot-shaped peninsula. The honest people of Calabria struggle just to get by in one of Europe's most economically depressed corners, where nearly 25% of families live below the poverty line. Meanwhile, the region's mob bosses are ruthlessly expanding their empire. Once considered less sophisticated and less organized than its nearby Sicilian cousins, 'Ndrangheta was notorious in the 1980s for brutal but not necessarily lucrative kidnappings for ransom. For decades, Calabrian gangsters were satisfied with taking a cut from the limited economic activity of the countryside. But after an intense government campaign forced the Sicilian Mafia to scale back its narcotics business, the coastal region of Calabria offered an ideal alternative as a drug-trading route.

Over the past decade, officials say, the Calabrian clan has evolved into Europe's leading cocaine trafficker, with a network extending from Europe to South and North America and Australia. Its members are also deeply into related criminal enterprises like arms dealing, toxic-waste dumping, money laundering and graft from public-works contracts. Last week, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu declared that 'Ndrangheta is "the most entrenched, most powerful, and most aggressive of Italy's large criminal organizations."

After Fortugno's funeral, police launched a series of coordinated raids in Calabria, Rome and Milan — as well as in Belgium, France, Serbia and Montenegro, and Spain — that has so far netted more than 40 suspected 'Ndrangheta members and associates believed to be involved in the cocaine trade. But Italian officials worry that the clan has a lucrative new financial target in its sights. Earlier this month, a general contractor was chosen to build what will be the world's longest single-span suspension bridge to connect Calabria to Sicily. Antimob investigators say the criminal networks on both sides of the Strait of Messina are hungrily eyeing the j5.7 billion project in hopes of a slice.

The local strength and worldwide reach of 'Ndrangheta is a bit hard to imagine amid the dilapidated piazzas and alleyways of Plati, a small town perched in the jagged hillside above Locri. The municipality of 4,000 is considered one of the clan's main strongholds. From here, the bosses orchestrate their international drug ring and send hit men out to whack rivals down in the flatlands of Calabria and beyond. Three years ago, local police discovered that town funds had been used to construct an intricate system of escape hatches leading from the center of town through the underground sewage system to help wanted men flee the authorities. After pointing out several of the concrete covers now blocking the hatches, a police officer notes the surreptitious signals from a few locals as they pass by. It means, he says, "we're being watched."

Part of what makes 'Ndrangheta so hard to crack is the way it can still rely on strong family ties, cemented through marriage, to keep its secrets. "Cosa Nostra is much more hierarchical," says the police officer. "Here, control is even stronger because no one talks." Not a single arrest has been made for any of the past year's 23 murders in this stretch of eastern Calabria. Local residents say that they are not complicit in omertà, the mob code of protective silence. But most are scared that the government cannot protect them if they talk.

Lingering in front of the cathedral after Fortugno's funeral, Giuseppe Macri, 50, says he was skeptical that all the strong words spoken from the pulpit would be followed by action. "Calabria is the most neglected region in Italy," he says. "There's always someone else's emergency that comes before ours. We Calabrians have lost faith. We know next week, all the attention will be gone."

Macri's only son will be finishing high school in the spring and the father, proud of his Calabrian roots, says he'd always hoped his boy would study at a local university, just like dad. After the assassination, though, he has advised his son to go north to university — and stay there afterward. "I can't delude myself anymore," says Macri. But the departing steps of honest folk are music to the ears of 'Ndrangheta — and a blaring alarm to the rest of Italy.

• JEFF ISRAELY / Locri
• A leading politician is gunned down in Italy's Calabria region, a worrying sign that the local Mafia is growing in confidence and power