arrested as Griffiths man Pasquale ''Pat'' Barbaro, Crown casino high-roller and Tony Mokbel mate Rob Karam and the founder of the Black Uhlans bikie gang in Melbourne John William Samuel Higgs.Various close relatives of Mr Barbaro, 46, were named in the Woodward Royal Commission as being members of the Calabrian Mafia gang responsible for the 1977 murder of Donald Mackay.Mr Keelty revealed 400 AFP agents conducted more than 10,000 hours of secret surveillance on gang members and that the AFP estimated the international drug syndicate was responsible for 60 per cent of all drug importations into Australia.Members of various organised crime gangs collaborated with each other in a rare case of unity to fund and organise the massive ecstasy shipments. AFP intelligence suggests Australian members of the Calabrian mafia played major roles in the international syndicate.
They teamed up with criminals from other gangs, including some of Lebanese extraction. A founding member of a Melbourne bike gang was among those arrested today. One of those arrested in Griffith in New South Wales has strong links to the Calabrian mafia cell responsible for the murder of anti-drug campaigner Donald Mackay. That Australia was on the smuggling route of an international gang dominated by the Calabrian mafia came as no surprise to Italian organised crime experts.
The Calabrian secret society at the centre of the global drug racket is known in Calabrian dialect as N'Dranghita. N'Dranghita has had very strong cells in Australia since at least the 1930s.
It is particularly prevalent in Melbourne, Mildura and Shepparton in Victoria, Griffith in New South Wales, Adelaide and Canberra.
N'Dranghita is called L'Onorata Societa or the Honoured Society by some Italians, La Famiglia or the Family by others, and simply the mafia by most in Australia.
It is the gang responsible for the the 1977 murder of Griffith anti-drugs crusader Donald Mackay. N'Dranghita has been responsible for growing and distributing much of Australia's marijuana for decades. It also got involved in heroin importations in 1978 through now dead crime boss Robert Trimbole and is known to have been involved in massive cocaine importations since at least 2000.
The AFP has been working closely with several overseas law enforcement agencies to gather evidence to bust the network's Australian arm. The arrests followed the arrival in Melbourne on July 24 of a shipping container with three 50kg bags of cocaine hidden in a load of coffee.
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