Organize Courage

Our life fighting the 'ndrangheta

Pino Masciari - Marisa Masciari

Pino Masciari, a Calabrian building contractor, has challenged organized crime, and for this reason has had to renounce his life and liberty. On his own, he has denounced, fought and searched for the truth, bringing about the convictions of more than forty people, from low-level ‘ndragheta laborers to the highest leaders of the organization and the political mafia that is often linked to crime.

Since 1997 Masciari and his family have been part of a special program of protection, and have had to abandon their home and territory. No more work or attachments, no more Calabria, but rather a series of moves that feel like continuous and prolonged abandonment. In these years Masciari has become a protected state’s witness, a figure instituted by the Italian government in 2001 to call attention to those model citizens who, with a sense of public spirit, give evidence in the name of justice. But around him is an isolating wall of indifference.
Despite the situation in which he is forced to live (unescorted, with no prospects for the future, far from his home), Masciari will always testify, giving names and holding back nothing of his dramatic experience as a businessman who went bankrupt because of families of the ‘ndrangheta. Members of the community, however, have become aware of him and his family and have intervened firmly and in great numbers, taking the place of the escort and making up for the government’s shortcomings. Thanks to them, Pino Masciari is still alive and his story can be told. Those who wanted him to remain hidden, abandoned and weak have failed. His denouncements have hit the mark, and for this reason the ‘ndrangheta wanted him dead.
With him are his wife Marisa and their two children. They are a family that has suffered because of their choice of justice and because of their desire for a country where laws, rather than criminals, govern. This book is their story.