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| - A top boss from Italy's 'Ndrangheta mafia has started talking to investigators, in a potential breakthrough in the fight against one of the world's most powerful crime groups, a senior judicial source said Friday. The source confirmed to AFP media reports that Nicolino Grande Aracri, who is serving a life sentence for murder in a Milan prison, was cooperating with prosecutors and police. The 62-year-old mobster, known as "rubber hand", was one of the 'Ndrangheta's top men in its southern home region of Calabria, but also ran extensive criminal activities in Emilia-Romagna, in Italy's north. Italy has long relied on so-called "turncoats" to penetrate mafia organisations. But with the 'Ndrangheta, they always struggled to break the code of silence and family ties that bind its members. Grande Aracri's decision to talk could be a game changer, but there is no detail on what he has said so far to investigators, and on whether they consider him a reliable source. In return for their cooperation, jailed mafiosi can obtain reduced jail sentences and other benefits. But in some cases, they have fed investigators irrelevant or false information. The 'Ndrangheta has long surpassed Sicily's Cosa Nostra as Italy's biggest mafia organisation, and is considered one of the world's most powerful crime syndicates due to its control of most of the cocaine entering Europe. aa/ar/lc
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