Maria Serraino

Maria Serraino (1931 – 7 December 2017) was an Italian criminal and a member of the 'Ndrangheta mafia-style organization in Calabria. She is one of the rare examples of a woman leading a 'Ndrangheta clan.

She belonged to a longstanding 'Ndrangheta family from the Reggio Calabria area, the Serraino 'ndrina, from Cardeto, about 10 km southeast of the city of Reggio Calabria. She was a cousin of Paolo Serraino, the boss of the Calabrian branch of the clan.

Moving north She married Rosario Di Giovine, a prolific tobacco smuggler. Between 1949 and 1985, he was sentenced 65 times for tobacco smuggling and 23 other violations of the tobacco monopoly rules. In 1963 the family moved to Milan. The Serraino-Di Giovine clan ultimately controlled the territory around Piazza Prealpi, a square located in the north of Milan, and via Belgioioso.

During the 1970s, the trade shifted from cigarettes to narcotics (including hashish, cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy) and weapons, and involved the whole family of twelve children. The weapons were sent to Calabria, where their relatives were involved in the Second 'Ndrangheta war (1985–1991).

Downfall The organisation was dismantled in 1993-1995 by three police operations, called Belgio from the name of the street where the clan resided. Some 180 members of the organisation were arrested. She was released to house arrest after twenty years due to severe ill-health, cancer; she died in Milan in 2017.

Female boss Maria Serraino embodies the main characteristic of female power in the 'Ndrangheta: power not in appearance but in substance. Unlike men, women are less interested in external recognition of their power and more interested in exercising it. Her daughter Rita Di Giovine attributed her mother with the qualities of a boss and made her charismatic leadership abilities a question of blood lines, of belonging to a traditional 'Ndrangheta family. "She’s got it right there in her blood, in her veins," Rita said about her mother. "My mother had all the power, because if she decided some job shouldn’t be done, then the job wasn’t done."

Despite Maria's prominent position she suffered violence from her husband, which was considered unimportant within this milieu: "I saw my father beat my mother," her daughter testified. "Even when she was nine months pregnant, he hit her with a broom and broke two ribs." The 'Ndrangheta is ruled by male prejudice, and women are considered the property of the men. Maria also could not prevent her daughter Rita from being sexually harassed by her brothers and raped by her father from the ages of nine to nineteen, when she became pregnant. Despite the hardships and her ruthless rule over the clan, she remained a mother in her own way. When she learned that one daughter became addicted to heroin, she undertook a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Polsi in Calabria, where she pledged to stop dealing heroin and only sell hashish, in the hope that her daughter would overcome her addiction.