Paolo Serraino is an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 criminal and a member of the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

. He was born in Cardeto

Cardeto

Cardeto is a comune in the Province of Reggio Calabria in the Italian region Calabria, located about 120 km southwest of Catanzaro and about 10 km southeast of Reggio Calabria...

, about 10 km southeast of the city of Reggio Calabria

Reggio Calabria

Reggio di Calabria , commonly known as Reggio Calabria or Reggio, is the biggest city and the most populated comune of Calabria, southern Italy, and is the capital of the Province of Reggio Calabria and seat of the Council of Calabrian government.Reggio is located on the "toe" of the Italian...

.

He is the younger the brother of the boss of the Serraino 'ndrina

Serraino 'ndrina

The Serraino 'ndrina is a clan of the 'Ndrangheta, a criminal and mafia-type organisation in Calabria, Italy. The 'ndrina is based in Cardeto, about 10 km southeast of the city of Reggio Calabria...

, Francesco Serraino (born in 1929), known as the “king of the mountains” for his control over the wood industry in the Aspromonte

Aspromonte

Aspromonte is a mountain massif in the province of Reggio Calabria . The name means "rough mountains", so named by the farmers who found its steep terrain and rocky soil difficult to cultivate. It overlooks the Strait of Messina, being limited by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas and by the Pietrace...

 mountains. At the age of 17, he was already denounced for illegal possession of firearms.

The Serraino clan is related with the Di Giovine clan. The Di Giovine clan, headed by Maria Serraino

Maria Serraino

Maria Serraino is an Italian female criminal and a member of the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria. She is one of the rare examples of a female leading a 'Ndrangheta clan....

, a cousin of Paolo Serraino, and her son Emilio Di Giovine were active in arms and drug trafficking in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, in northern Italy. The organisation was dismantled in 1993-1995.

Second 'Ndrangheta war

The Serraino clan was a protagonist in the Second 'Ndrangheta war (1985–1991), which grouped all the 'ndrine in the city of Reggio Calabria into either one of two opposing factions: the Condello

Pasquale Condello

Pasquale Condello is an Italian criminal known as a member of the 'Ndrangheta. He is also known as "Il supremo" for his role at the top of the crime syndicate. He was a fugitive since 1990 and included in the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy until his capture in February 2008...

, Imerti

Antonio Imerti

Antonio Imerti , also known as "Nanu feroce" , is an Italian criminal and a member of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia...

, Serraino and Rosmini

Diego Rosmini

Diego Rosmini , also known as Direttore, is an Italian criminal and a member of the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria...

 clans on one side, and the De Stefano 'ndrina

De Stefano 'ndrina

The De Stefano 'ndrina is one of the most powerful clans of the 'Ndrangheta, a criminal and mafia-type organisation in Calabria, Italy. The 'ndrina hailed from the Archi neighbourhood in Reggio Calabria. Several of its members were included in the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy...

, Tegano

Giovanni Tegano

Giovanni Tegano is an Italian criminal and a member of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia. He was a fugitive since 1993 and included in the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy, until his arrest in April 2010...

, Libri

Domenico Libri

Domenico Libri , also known as Don Mico, was an Italian criminal and a member of the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria. He was a fugitive since June 1989 and included in the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy until his capture in September 1992...

 and Latella clans on the other.

Francesco Serraino was killed on April 23, 1986, in a hospital in the city of Reggio Calabria, with his son Alessandro (born in 1959). He was held responsible for killing Giorgio De Stefano, at the time the boss of the De Stefano 'ndrina, in 1977, at the end of the First 'Ndrangheta war. Paolo and his brother Domenico Serraino (born in 1945) took over the reins of the clan.

Paolo Serraino became one of the leaders in the war. He financed the purchase of several bazooka

Bazooka

Bazooka is the common name for a man-portable recoilless rocket antitank weapon, widely fielded by the U.S. Army. Also referred to as the "Stovepipe", the innovative bazooka was amongst the first-generation of rocket propelled anti-tank weapons used in infantry combat...

s. The arms were delivered by their relatives of the Serraino-Di Giovine clan in Milan. Both he and his brother Domenico became members of La Provincia, a provincial commission of the 'Ndrangheta, formed at the end of the war in September 1991 to avoid further internal conflicts.

Arrest and convictions

After nine years on the run, Paolo Serraino and his brother Domenico were arrested in Cardeto in July 1995. He had already been convicted to life in November 1992 for murder and Mafia association.

In 1998, he received a life sentence for ordering the killing in 1989 of the Christan Democrat

Christian Democracy (Italy)

Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic party in Italy. It was founded in 1943 as the ideological successor of the historical Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield ....

 politician Lodovico Ligato

Lodovico Ligato

Lodovico Ligato was an Italian Christian Democrat politician from Reggio Calabria and the former head of the Italian State Railways...

, former head of the Italian State Railways. Ligato demanded a 10 percent bribe on public work contracts, jeopardizing agreements already reached among a so-called "business committee" of local politicians and 'Ndrangheta groups.

In January 1999 he received a life sentence for murder and Mafia association in the Olimpia Trial.