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00:00Hundreds of alleged members of Italy's most powerful mafia group, the Drangheta, are being
00:07prosecuted.
00:08There is a reason why this is called a maxi trial.
00:14In 2021, sentencing began in one of the biggest mafia trials in history.
00:22In all, 207 gang members were sentenced to a total of 2,200 years behind bars.
00:34The trial, which has lasted for three years, heard evidence of murder, corruption, extortion
00:41and money laundering.
00:48The accused were from the most notorious branch of the mafia, the Andrangheta.
00:53The Andrangheta is very, very strong.
00:57The Andrangheta International is very, very strong.
01:01They know how to make money and they have money.
01:04Silence is their power.
01:07Even with mass convictions, many question how much the Andrangheta's influence will
01:11diminish.
01:12The mafia can do its business from behind bars.
01:16Before the trial, the main prosecutor was quoted as saying that the Andrangheta's interests
01:22in the UK have figured prominently as clans have used the country as an investment and
01:27money laundering base.
01:29If that proved to be the case, it could change what we know about the mafia and Britain.
01:46The mafia, historically, is a hierarchical, structured, organised crime group from southern
02:01Italy.
02:03But what exactly is its relationship with Britain?
02:09I've travelled around the world to try and find out.
02:14And I took him apart in there, wound up on that curb right there.
02:19From the glitz and glamour of London's casinos in the 1960s, which attracted the American
02:25mob.
02:26Carlo Gambino.
02:27Did you meet John Gotti?
02:29Yeah.
02:30He's a big member of the Five Families.
02:32To the Colombian drug trafficking operation in the 80s and 90s, which fuelled a cocaine
02:37epidemic across Europe and the UK.
02:41300, 400, 500 kilos in one airplane.
02:46My journey took me to Italy to discover more about a powerful wing of the mafia, the Andrangheta.
02:53Por todo el mundo.
02:57Which in recent years has risen to become one of the most influential mafia groups.
03:04Just how rich and powerful are they?
03:07To be a legal business, we can only guess it's about 50 million euros.
03:12It could be twice as much.
03:16And a former member has revealed what he believes is their connection to Britain.
03:20In Italy there are drug traffickers who deal with recycling, finance and the like.
03:31To truly understand the extent of the Andrangheta's operation, I'm heading to their heartland
03:38in southern Italy.
03:42Just about to enter Calabria, one of the poorest regions in Europe.
03:47Historically, its mountains were home to bandits and kidnappers.
03:52The ancestral home of one of the world's most powerful organised crime groups.
04:02Since the 19th century, the small town of Plati has been an Andrangheta stronghold.
04:08They have found their strength in their ability to rely on traditional family loyalties and
04:16a code of silence.
04:19While not everyone who lives there is a member, Plati is still home to many of the bosses.
04:27Wow.
04:28It's not a bad view to have from your office.
04:34Marcello Di Gioia is head of the police station in Plati.
04:40This must be one of the most sensitive police stations in the whole of Italy.
04:46Yes.
04:47It was a difficult territory for those who worked here as police officers.
04:54In Andrangheta, they control everything that happens in the village.
04:58There have been several attacks.
05:01There have been several homicides.
05:04Shootings also with police officers.
05:08There have also been attacks on the police station.
05:13If a stranger enters the village, they are watched by the young people.
05:21So I take it they'll know that we're here?
05:23Of course.
05:24They've been here for a while.
05:26Really?
05:27They know everything.
05:30They know everything.
05:31It's unnerving, though not surprising, to know that the Andrangheta are watching us.
05:42Traditionally, they have specialized in numerous criminal enterprises, including kidnapping,
05:48drug trafficking, and money laundering.
05:55So this house, right?
05:57The marshal is taking me to the former safe house of one of the Andrangheta's top bosses.
06:04Can we go in?
06:16A few years ago, the police raided the property.
06:28So there is an electronic switch in this house that opens up a trap door.
06:34Can you show me the entrance?
06:41Just take my coat for me.
06:43And my hat.
06:45There we go.
06:47It is tight, isn't it?
06:51Oh, wow.
06:53Yeah, there is a bunker down here.
06:57So how many houses do you think in this village have bunkers?
07:02Ah.
07:09Oh, wow.
07:11Yeah, there is a bunker down here.
07:16So how many houses do you think in this village have bunkers?
07:20There are a lot of bunkers, but we have made a census
07:26of about 44, 45 bunkers.
07:30There's a large room,
07:33and off that large room, there are separate tunnels.
07:50But it's a tight squeeze.
07:54In a hurry, you wouldn't really matter whether you bashed yourself,
07:59cos you wouldn't want to get caught by you lot.
08:06Some of the Andrangata's bunkers have boasted luxury bedrooms,
08:10running water, jacuzzis and security cameras.
08:14Lovely.
08:16And since members of the Andrangata
08:18are nearly always connected by blood,
08:20very few have ever talked or become pentiti,
08:25literally a repentant.
08:27Pentiti turn against their organised crime group
08:31to collaborate with the authorities.
08:35On one occasion, a mafia boss was in hiding for 14 years
08:40before being discovered.
08:42This video shows the arrest of an alleged mafia boss
08:45who specialised in extortion.
08:48How many tunnels do you think there are in this town?
08:53We never counted them, but there are a lot.
08:55So, effectively, this town is like a piece of Swiss cheese.
08:58It's got tunnels all the way through it.
09:03So you can cross town without being seen?
09:05Yes.
09:07Many are connected to the Fogna,
09:09which allows us to cross the town from the valley to the mountain.
09:14They are organised.
09:17They are ahead of us in terms of criminal intelligence.
09:21Not all of Plati has been involved.
09:24Fortunately, not all of Plati.
09:25There is also the good side of Plati, the healthy side of Plati,
09:29which is what we want to value, what we want to protect.
09:35From small rural towns in Calabria riddled with tunnels,
09:40the Andrangheta became a major international force.
09:44Today, they are estimated to operate a large part of Europe's cocaine trade
09:49and they're thought to be worth around $72 billion.
09:55But are they operating in Britain?
10:01In 2021, one of Italy's largest court trials began here in Calabria.
10:07MAN SPEAKS ITALIAN
10:12The trial, which has lasted for three years,
10:15heard evidence of murder, corruption, extortion and money laundering.
10:20MAN SPEAKS ITALIAN
10:28Before the trial, an Italian prosecutor
10:31was sent to Calabria to investigate the case.
10:35Before the trial, an Italian prosecutor accused the Andrangheta
10:40of funnelling money through companies in Britain.
10:44I remember a merchant banker in the city of London telling me
10:49that he loved to handle mafia money.
10:53It was an extraordinary accusation
10:56and I've managed to contact a mafia prosecutor
10:59working in this region to find out more.
11:02Testament to how dangerous it is to be a prosecutor here in Calabria
11:06is the fact that we're not allowed to film going into the building behind me.
11:12It also only has one way in and that's over a moat that's 20 metres deep.
11:26I'm investigating Britain's links to the mafia.
11:30I'm now in Calabria in the south of Italy,
11:34the ancestral home of the Andrangheta,
11:37a powerful and dominant branch of the mafia.
11:42Prosecutor.
11:44Giuseppe Lombardo is a state prosecutor here
11:48and he and his team have been investigating the Andrangheta
11:53for the last 26 years.
11:56When your life is at risk every day,
11:59why do you come to work?
12:01Why do you do what you do?
12:30How far do you think their power stretches?
12:38That's more money than major corporations can make.
12:43Where does that cash flow come from?
12:46Where does that money come from?
12:48It comes from the public sector.
12:50It comes from the public sector.
12:52It comes from the public sector.
12:54It comes from the public sector.
12:56It comes from the public sector.
12:58Where does that cash go?
13:00How do you legitimise that amount of money?
13:02It ends up in private investments.
13:06Investing 2, 3, 10 billion euros in Calabria doesn't make any sense.
13:12So those who have such important capital
13:17must necessarily relate to very rich economies.
13:21And London is one of the world's financial capitals.
13:25London? London.
13:27Why particularly London?
13:30What's attractive about the city of London?
13:55If that's true,
13:57where were the British authorities of this alleged criminal connection
14:01and what are they doing about it?
14:03I've discovered that over 30 years ago,
14:07at the behest of the Italian government,
14:09Scotland Yard sent a detective to Rome
14:13to investigate the UK's relationship with the mafia.
14:17So I'm heading to meet him.
14:27Hello.
14:37Gus. Oh, hi.
14:39Good to meet you. Yeah, very pleased to meet you.
14:43Gus Jones was a detective
14:45working in the organised crime division in London
14:49when he received a new posting.
14:51Gus, when did you come to Italy?
14:53First came here late 1990.
14:55Specifically looking at the mafia, yeah?
14:57Yeah.
14:59Our knowledge of Italian organised crime
15:01and Italian enforcement agencies
15:03was pretty minimal in the UK.
15:05Right.
15:07And I think I'd have met Judge Falcone
15:09in the spring of the early 1990s.
15:13In the 1980s and early 90s,
15:15the leading anti-mafia prosecutor
15:18was Giovanni Falcone.
15:24Falcone and Borsellino did more to damage the mafia
15:27than anyone since the war.
15:29Now I'm hearing that he and fellow prosecutor Paolo Borsellino
15:34were on the trail of mafia money in the UK.
15:39We organised the contacts for him in Channel Islands
15:42and Guernsey in particular.
15:45So tax havens? Tax havens, yeah,
15:47because no-one can put a figure on it,
15:49but you're talking multi-millions,
15:51not billions of...
15:53Well, it's lira then, of course,
15:55coming through London and going to various sources.
15:58So Falcone was aware that there was a connection
16:01between mafia money made from drugs in Italy
16:04and laundering in the UK?
16:06Exactly.
16:08Falcone had become a thorn in the Sicilian mafia's side.
16:14I saw him at a meeting here in Rome.
16:16I went to speak to him and he said,
16:18the message is going out, I'm becoming too effective,
16:21I'm causing too much trouble and my time is up.
16:24He said that? Yes.
16:26Just two weeks later, Falcone was assassinated.
16:32The Falcone bomb was a ruthless demonstration
16:35of the mafia's military might.
16:39Not long before Falcone's death,
16:42Gus had been collaborating with his Italian counterparts
16:46on a confidential report.
16:49He submitted his findings to London.
16:52We prepared a thing called the RAIN report,
16:55which is entitled The Mafia and Why It Matters to Us.
16:59One of the main conclusions in our report
17:01is in the field of money laundering
17:03that the Italians believe that we, the United Kingdom,
17:06have the most cause for concern.
17:09And the monies being generated have been passing through UK,
17:13London, offshore and into property and businesses.
17:16We were trying to make people aware as to the dangers
17:19that we were going to suffer as a result of the activities
17:22of Italian organised crime.
17:25Gus's RAIN report documented evidence
17:29of alleged dirty money from the mafia infiltrating Britain.
17:35So how far did it go?
17:37It went to the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary.
17:40Did we take it seriously?
17:42Very few people did.
17:44If you spoke to anyone then, and probably now mention this
17:47and what the situation is, they'd say,
17:49we've no idea what you're talking about.
17:52Gus believes his copy of this report is one of the few that remain.
17:56It's still very relevant. It's far worse.
17:59Basically, that report that you wrote 30 years ago
18:01is even more relevant today... Correct.
18:03..but people are still ignorant of it. Exactly.
18:06People are still in denial. We were in denial then.
18:09It worked with some, but not many.
18:12According to Gus, the report may not have been taken seriously
18:16by the British government of the day,
18:19but when it was leaked to a newspaper,
18:21the mafia took it very seriously.
18:25For you personally, Gus, what happened
18:27when the RAIN report was leaked?
18:29Named me, and my son, he was going to school,
18:33so I went back upstairs so that I found three bullets on our doorstep.
18:37How old was he? He was 11.
18:39And, of course, there are my family, it has three members,
18:42me, my wife and my son.
18:44It's a pretty clear message, isn't it?
18:46Clear message, but that's exactly what happened.
18:50Although the RAIN report was investigating the Sicilian mafia,
18:54in the 30 years since Gus left Italy,
18:57it is the Andrangheta wing of the mafia
19:00that has expanded global operations.
19:03They are now the power, in particular with cocaine trafficking.
19:07Not just Europe, not just Italy, worldwide, they control it.
19:10And, of course, that generates even more money,
19:12means huge amounts of money.
19:14There's no point earning lots of money unless you can actually spend it.
19:17Exactly, and a huge percentage of that is going through London.
19:23Gus believes that Britain has been laundering money for many years.
19:28If that's true, how is it getting there?
19:34I never got stopped.
19:36I never, ever got looked at, straight away, straight through.
19:41On a recent trip to Italy,
19:44I was told that by the 1990s,
19:47Britain had become a possible location to launder mafia money.
20:11London. London.
20:13But if that's the case,
20:15how did large amounts of cash make it across the border?
20:19I'm hoping that a bizarre new story
20:22about a British-Italian housewife from Lancashire
20:25might give me some answers.
20:29In 1994, Marisa Merico, a mother of two,
20:34was jailed for laundering illegal money here in the UK.
20:40She's out of prison and living in Britain,
20:43unwilling to talk to me.
20:48Hi. How are you? Hi. Good, thank you.
20:52Marisa Merico is the daughter
20:55of one of Italy's most notorious mafia godfathers,
20:59Emilio Di Giovanni.
21:04My mother is from here.
21:06Oh, right. A northern girl.
21:08She went to Italy.
21:10She was an au pair out there and that's where she met my dad
21:13and I came along in 1970.
21:17Her parents' separation would lead to an extraordinary double life,
21:21with Marisa living between Lancashire and Milan.
21:27Very nice house. Thank you.
21:29I feel very lucky to be here.
21:32In many ways. Yeah.
21:34There's been quite dangerous times in my life,
21:36especially when I got married.
21:38Why when you got married?
21:40Because there was two bike riders waiting at my wedding
21:43to shoot my dad.
21:45So there were sicarios? It could have been a bloodbath, my wedding.
21:48I was about three months pregnant at the time
21:51when I got married as well, yeah.
21:53Having served two life sentences,
21:56Emilio Di Giovanni has now retired from his former life.
22:02And this is my dad.
22:04Oh, sorry.
22:06Hello. I'm Ross. Hi.
22:08Nice to meet you.
22:10Emilio is now working as a chef in Italy
22:13and has flown over to meet me.
22:15Effectively, your dad was a boss inside the Entrangata, correct?
22:19Yeah, that's right.
22:21And everybody looked up to him, everybody had respect,
22:24so they treated me a bit different, I guess.
22:27She's a princess because of my daughter.
22:29Yeah. My daughter liked me.
22:31Touch her, touch me.
22:33Any guy come near your daughter?
22:35That would have been a no-no.
22:37Oh, no, no. No way.
22:39Serrano family, they were the most powerful mafia.
22:44Marisa's grandmother, Maria Serrano,
22:48known as Granny Heroine,
22:51ran a notorious mafia clan with her son Emilio.
22:57They were the bosses of a hugely profitable
23:00trafficking operation based in Milan.
23:19Aged just 17, Marisa moved to Italy to join the family business.
23:26I got involved little by little
23:28because I was cleaning with an English passport.
23:31That's a very handy thing to have.
23:33Oh, yeah. I used to be able to go through airports and get past anything
23:37because I looked so innocent.
23:39And what were you actually doing?
23:41I was taking money to pay for the shipments of the cannabis.
23:47I used to have, like, big knickers,
23:49Bridget Jones-y knickers, that's what you call them, isn't it?
23:52And stuff all the money all around, like this,
23:56to the point where it wouldn't look suspicious.
23:59How much did you carry?
24:01150,000 more, but, I mean, I was quite slim then.
24:04And I could fit quite a lot.
24:08I never got stopped. I never, ever got looked at.
24:14Marisa made the perfect money mule.
24:17No-one suspected her, which was great for the family business.
24:22Two million a week I make. A week? Yeah. A week, yeah.
24:25Wow. He was supplying nine countries.
24:28When you're making that kind of cash,
24:30you've got to clean it somehow, haven't you?
24:33I have a bank. I have a bank in Zurich.
24:36I have a manager at the bank in Zurich.
24:38They put the money how much I want.
24:40And it wasn't a problem laundering it?
24:42No, no problem because I have a...
24:44Believe me, no problem laundering money.
24:48In Switzerland, Emilio and Marisa's mafia family
24:52deposited millions of pounds of drug money
24:55into various banks and other businesses.
24:58We had an accountant that made us shareholders of things.
25:02Well, that was all the money.
25:04Waterworks shareholders.
25:06We had a leather factory.
25:09You know, we just invested a lot of money into that
25:12and just laundered it like that.
25:14So you've gone from being in Lancashire
25:16to owning a waterworks treatment and a leather factory
25:20and transporting 150,000 in your knickers?
25:24Yeah.
25:27When Emilio was arrested for murder in 1992,
25:31Marisa was expected to lead
25:33one of the most dangerous crime families in Europe
25:37at the age of just 22.
25:40So you become a boss, effectively?
25:42He trusts you, that's why you take that position?
25:45Yeah, you're right in that way, yeah.
25:47She made voice? Yeah.
25:48So I used to go every weekend to prison.
25:50Were you conducting business when you met your dad?
25:53Yeah, well, he was giving me notes to give to all his men.
25:57And the organisation was still going for another year.
26:00Making lots of money? Money, yeah.
26:02Marisa's time running the family business was soon cut short.
26:07Her aunt turned police informant,
26:09giving up the names of the entire organisation.
26:13300 people.
26:16Her own son, her own mum.
26:18This is 23 generations? Yeah.
26:21In the chaos, Marisa fled to the UK.
26:25I managed to get my daughter back to my mum's.
26:29I then transferred just short of ÂŁ500,000 to the UK.
26:34From where? Coots Bank.
26:39Coots is one of the most reputable and elite private banks in Britain.
26:46I then bought myself a show home because it was already kitted out
26:51and I came over with absolutely nothing.
26:53I had to leave everything behind.
26:55And then, about a year later, they came knocking on my door.
26:59Who were they? A customer in excise.
27:01Bang, bang, bang, came in and searched the house.
27:06I got arrested and I got taken to the police station in Blackpool.
27:10Then I got transferred to HMP Durham.
27:14What were you convicted of? Money laundering.
27:16I got convicted three years and nine months.
27:20By buying her show home in the UK,
27:23Marisa was cleaning mafia money through a legitimate investment.
27:29What about the Italian authorities? Do they not want you?
27:32Yes, so as soon as I got released in Durham,
27:34I got extradited to Italy.
27:36Got ten years, taken down to six years.
27:42When you look back on it now,
27:44is it like looking back at somebody else's life?
27:47Yeah, it is.
27:49You're living your life looking behind you all the time.
27:53You know, I'm a strong woman.
27:55I'm a survivor, I guess, in a lot of ways.
27:57So is your dad. Yeah.
27:59I changed my life completely.
28:02Now from 92, I become chef.
28:06I work with the police.
28:08I'm happy now. I know this life is bullshit.
28:12I'm really changed now.
28:16Marisa's extraordinary story has revealed how a British bank
28:21inadvertently handled mafia money.
28:26Experts suspect billions of pounds are laundered into the UK
28:30through property every year.
28:34A number of British banks have been investigated
28:37by the Financial Conduct Authorities.
28:40In 2012, Coutts was fined ÂŁ8.75 million,
28:46but that was dwarfed by other fines.
28:49Over the next ten years, HSBC was charged ÂŁ64 million,
28:54NatWest ÂŁ264 million
28:57and Santander and Standard Chartered
29:00were fined over ÂŁ100 million each.
29:04All were found to have serious and persistent gaps
29:08in their anti-money laundering controls in the UK.
29:14Banks in Britain and around the world
29:16unwittingly launder millions of pounds of so-called dirty money.
29:20Laundering, as it's known, effectively turns criminal money
29:23into legitimate money, making it harder for the authorities
29:26to trace its origins and so track down the criminals.
29:31If the mafia were washing dirty money in Britain,
29:35how long has it been going on for?
29:39I'm about to meet someone who was operating on the inside.
29:44Thank you for agreeing to talk to us.
29:46It's no problem, sir.
29:48In the late 80s and early 1990s,
29:52Keith, a pseudonym, worked as an undercover money launderer
29:56for UK Customs and Excise.
29:59The people he deceived and helped to prosecute
30:02are so dangerous that even more than 30 years on,
30:06Keith will only conduct this interview anonymously.
30:10When do your bosses decide that you're the kind of person
30:13that should work undercover?
30:15I'd been in the investigation for a number of years by that stage
30:18and a new team had been set up that dealt with high-level criminals
30:23and the idea was that we were to infiltrate drug cartels
30:28and get as much information as possible.
30:31But you were putting your life on the line, weren't you?
30:34Yes, I was.
30:37In the early 1990s, as the US mob weakened,
30:41the South American drug cartels started dealing directly
30:44with their European counterparts.
30:47Keith was introduced to the cartels by an undercover DEA agent
30:52as a specialised money launderer.
30:55The Americans had picked up the money
30:58and they were going to use it for their own purposes.
31:03The Americans had picked up physical amounts of cash
31:08from the Lafayette and they would then bring it to me
31:13physically in London in suitcases
31:16and I would actually take that money and put it through the bank
31:20into our shell company in this country.
31:24Shell companies are inactive businesses
31:27used as a front for legitimising dirty money.
31:32What they didn't realise was that the people
31:35that were actually washing the money
31:37were in fact undercover agents from the DEA and UK Customs.
31:43Keith and his fellow undercover operatives
31:46were part of a vast international money laundering investigation
31:50into the cartels and the mafia in the early 1990s
31:55called Operation Green Ice.
31:58For the first time, British Customs was about to launder money
32:01as part of an operation.
32:04In order for the cartels and the mafia to trust Keith,
32:08he posed as a successful businessman.
32:12I drove a Rolls-Royce car in the UK.
32:14Sorry, hang on a minute. You drove a Rolls-Royce?
32:17Yes. It was a seized car from a gold smuggler that we'd adapted
32:23and they provided me with a luxury flat.
32:26That's important, isn't it?
32:28It's not just that you show up in these things once every month.
32:32You have to live that life permanently.
32:35Yeah, it did put the pressure on them to see children, wife.
32:41Once embedded, the scale of the problem soon became apparent.
32:46Just how much money laundering was going on at that time?
32:51There was quite a lot.
32:53The late 80s, early 90s,
32:55some of the overseas banks that were here in the city
32:59would not ask too many questions of their customer.
33:03It's big, big business.
33:05I think the money laundering business
33:07is the third largest industry in the world
33:10behind oil and agriculture.
33:13It's massive.
33:17To expose this vast criminal operation,
33:20Keefe and his team had to try and flush out the people at the top.
33:30We would be able to slow things down,
33:35cause problems in the financial system.
33:38Then you'll be surprised how many people come out of the woodwork
33:42to find out where their money is.
33:44So part of your money laundering operation
33:46was actually to pass on intelligence
33:50that would reveal who was at the top of the tree?
33:53That was the objective of the time.
33:56And you were following it all the way?
33:58I was always being tracked, yeah.
34:00And it exposed the mafia in a big way
34:03to identify all their money laundering people.
34:07Operation Green Ice relied on a global intelligence network
34:12involving agents at the highest possible levels.
34:16And in September 1992, it came to a head.
34:22In a series of raids, over 200 people,
34:25including seven major financiers, arrested.
34:29Eight countries took part on the day of this simultaneous bust.
34:33One of the major people was a guy from the Italian police
34:37described as the major cocaine trafficker in the world.
34:42That also led to them identifying over 1.3 million
34:47that had been invested by the mafia
34:49in hotels, small industries and shops.
34:52So it was a big, big hit.
34:56Operation Green Ice resulted in the arrests of major players
35:00from the Colombian cartels and the Italian mafia.
35:04Millions of pounds, dollars, jewels and property were seized.
35:08They found more than 700kg of drugs
35:11and closed 15 companies used as fronts
35:14for trafficking and money laundering.
35:17It's still, to this day,
35:19one of the biggest single takedown operations ever conducted.
35:24Were you not at risk when this operation was finally closed?
35:28Yes, but you hope that your colleagues are looking after your back.
35:34Did you take any other kind of steps in order to ensure your safety?
35:40Yeah, I did take a little bit of a drastic step.
35:43I decided that I, of course, went in surgery to change my appearance
35:47because I was still working against cartel members at the time.
35:50Was it a bit drastic?
35:52I felt more comfortable meeting them
35:54and they gave me confidence I could carry on.
35:57How and why did it come to an end for you?
36:01I've done enough.
36:03And also, you can't go on for that long doing this work.
36:07It's not the life of a normal person and it's time to get out.
36:13Thank you for agreeing to talk to us.
36:15No problem.
36:17Operation Greenice may have achieved its goal,
36:20but money laundering is still crucial to the success of any organised crime group.
36:26Some people believe that financial institutions around the world
36:30were kept afloat by illegal money during the chaos of the financial crisis in 2008.
36:37Without the drug money, many banks would collapse.
36:53To uncover the link between Britain and the mafia has been an epic task
36:58that has finally brought me full circle.
37:05The first example I heard about possible mafia activity here in the UK
37:10was when I discovered that banker Roberta Calvi's body
37:14had been found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in June 1982.
37:20Professor John Dickey believed that banker Calvi was murdered
37:24for losing the mafia's money through his failing Banco Ambrosiano.
37:31This is where things really start to get dangerous.
37:34Because Calvi starts to lose mafia money.
37:37He starts to lose mafia money.
37:39Very, very good reasons for getting rid of him.
37:41Yeah, absolutely.
37:43So what is he doing in London?
37:45It may well be that he was looking around for more money
37:48to try and save his banks using his contacts in the city.
37:57So is the relationship between Britain and the mafia about money?
38:04Since 1994, all British banks have had to report to the police
38:08any transaction they find suspicious.
38:10But they're not always able to.
38:13In 2020, police seized ÂŁ2 million from a Lloyds bank account
38:18that was directly traceable to the Italian mafia.
38:22In global financial terms, this was small change.
38:28But in 2008, an extraordinary world event
38:32offered a new perspective on illegal money laundering.
38:36In 2008, an extraordinary world event
38:39offered a new perspective on illegal money in the banking system.
38:46It was the biggest bankruptcy in history
38:49and the tipping point into global recession.
38:52Stock markets tumbled and businesses went to the wall.
38:57This has been an extraordinarily serious set of events.
39:0216 years ago, the world found itself
39:05in the midst of an unprecedented global financial collapse.
39:09This was the biggest single economic crash of our lifetimes.
39:14Banks' funding sources have dried up.
39:17Billions of pounds no longer accessible.
39:20You just have to find the money.
39:24With the banks running out of cash, they desperately needed liquidity.
39:30The global financial system is developing
39:32that benefits those who wish to hide and move dirty money.
39:38Some experts believe that during the credit crunch,
39:41a number of financial institutions around the world
39:45were propped up by using illegal funds.
39:51During the financial crisis of 2008,
39:55drug money saved from bankruptcy many banks around the world.
40:03No-one said no to those money.
40:08And the then Director of the Office of United Nations Against Crime and Drugs,
40:13Antonio Costa, stated that, in many instances,
40:17the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital.
40:22There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.
40:29It has never been proved or suggested that any UK bank
40:34was propped up by illegal drug money during the credit crunch.
40:38But the spectre of laundering illegal money through Britain
40:41by organised crime groups still persists.
40:46The City of London now is one of the centres of money laundering
40:51in the world, and everybody is aware of that.
40:59If you were to withdraw illegal money in the City of London,
41:03would the City of London carry on working functionally?
41:07I don't think it would.
41:09I think that if you were to identify all money coming into the city
41:12from illegal origin, then that might collapse.
41:17The success of money laundering in the last 25 years
41:22has grown largely because of the digitisation of currency
41:27and financial transactions.
41:30You're seeing networks of criminals operating online,
41:34cooperating with one another as money launderers,
41:37as malicious code writers, all focused on financial gain.
41:42Could banks do more to help the police track down the money launderers?
41:46Practices are coming to light that have got to be dealt with,
41:50cleaning up the banking system of our country.
41:53Anonymised transactions which can be almost impossible
41:56for the police to trace.
42:01And the mafia have always been at the forefront of criminal evolution.
42:08Now they are at the age of the analogical reality
42:12and the digital virtual, the idea that they can work online
42:17using cryptocurrencies, using the dark web to sell narcotics.
42:24So they are always a step ahead compared to the authorities
42:31and the short side of politicians.
42:38THE MAFIA
42:44No British bank has ever been found guilty of laundering mafia money,
42:49but it's been speculated that it happens.
42:52I've travelled from London to cities across the United States,
42:57to the mountains of Colombia, to the coastlines of Spain and Italy.
43:03The one thing that's become clear is the reason
43:06the mafia has survived so long is its ability
43:10to remain one step ahead of the authorities, to be less visible.
43:16Maybe that is their greatest skill.
43:19If they are here, then detecting them is getting harder and harder.