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Rome’s Café de Paris, a key location in Federico Fellini’s iconic classic La Dolce Vita, found itself in the hands of the law on Wednesday 22^nd July 2009 when it was seized as part of an investigation into the activities of the increasingly powerful crime syndicate Ndrangheta – also known as the Calabrian Mafia.   The café was one of a number of properties with a total estimated value of $284 million (£172 million) seized by the police in an orchestrated operation.

 The Ndrangheta crime organisation is based in Calabria, in the Southern-most region of Italy and has, in recent years, risen to become even more powerful than the Sicilian Mafia having gained control of much of the trafficking of cocaine from South America into Europe.   The vast amounts of money made from such operations are the reason why the Mob frequently seeks legitimate enterprises such as the Café de Paris into which it can channel its profits.

The police believed that the Alvara-Palamara faction of the Calabrian mob had used an innocuous barber from a small rural town in Calabria to buy the café for them in 2005 at a knockdown price of approximately $350,000 (£212,000) at a time when its true value was estimated to be closer to $60 million (£36.3 million).  It was believed that the difference between these values was passed between involved parties in less legal ways than the sale price.

The restaurant and bar was open as normal by late morning, but under the management of a state-appointed official while the apparent owner was required to prove that he had no links with organized crime.

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