Cassano Jonio’s fears are all shrouded in silence. Fears remained for two weeks under that large white sheet that was used to cover the body of Giuseppe Scorza, victim of an ambush by the clans. That body remained for hours under the dazed and dull gazes of those who live between the city and its area with anxiety over yet another resurgence of violence. Too many times the ‘Ndrangheta has shot and killed here. Murders left without culprits.
But here is another infected wound that the state is trying to cure. What is happening in Cassano and in the Sibaritide is not a sudden emergency, but the outcome of structural causes that have been dragging on for years and which the “Master” operation of the Carabinieri Tutela Lavoro brought to the surface with twenty stops. A plague called gangmastering. The first structural cause of the phenomenon is economic. The Piana is one of the most intensive agricultural areas in Italy: peaches, clementines, olives require thousands of low-margin laborers in just a few months. If the requirement is not governed, it becomes fertile ground for illicit intermediation.
The second is logistical and social. Cassano is the third largest municipality in Calabria, with fluctuating presences impossible to register.
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