Encounters with the Calabrian Mafia: Inside the World of the 'Ndrangheta - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International: Antonio is one of these middlemen. He runs a seafood restaurant with a view of the ocean on the Tyrrhenian coast. Pictures in gold frames hang on the walls of his restaurant. "All of this," he says, waving his arm in a semi-circle, "I owe to the 'Ndrangheta."
Antonio says that he is a friend of Vincenzo. The rules for doing business with the South Americans are clear, he says: "We always pay in advance, and if they don't deliver, we kill them."
In such an unfortunate case, says Antonio, a couple of nice Italian families go to South America on vacation. During the trip, the men disappear for a while and take care of the job. Investigators whose work involves mafia drug deals believe that such talk is not bravado, but is in fact deadly serious.