'It was a discreet meeting at Rome's Fiumicino Airport nearly three years ago', McKenzie wrote the following day. 

The senior Italian Mafia investigator spoke in hushed tones as he related an intriguing story. 

The Italian authorities, he told The Age, had begun investigating a Calabrian crime network spanning nine countries, including Australia.

The investigator offered few details and said the operation was at an early stage. It would possibly be years before the group's activities were made public.

But in describing the size of the network's activities, he was explicit. He referred to an earlier anti-Mafia operation in 2004 that had uncovered the shipment of 500 kilograms of cocaine from Italy to Melbourne. Compared with the activities of the group he was now targeting, the investigator said, the 2004 bust was no more than an "antipasto — an appetiser".

The investigator dismissed the view of some in Australian law enforcement that the 'Ndrangheta — a family-based network known also as "the honoured society" that has its roots in the Calabrian town of Plati — was more myth than reality. He named the Riverina town of Griffith and Victoria as places where the 'Ndrangheta was still "very much active in Australia".

N'Dranghita is called L'Onorata Societa or the Honoured Society by some Italians, La Famiglia or the Family by others, and simply the mafia by most in Australia.

N'Dranghita has been responsible for growing and distributing much of Australia's marijuana for decades.

It also got involved in heroin importations in 1978 through now dead crime boss Robert Trimbole and is known to have been involved in massive cocaine importations since at least 2000.

It is particularly prevalent in Melbourne, Mildura and Shepparton in Victoria, Griffith in New South Wales, Adelaide and Canberra.

N'Dranghita are known to have had very strong cells in Australia since at least the 1930s.

The investigator also warned that the findings of the 1979 Woodward royal commission into drug trafficking should not be forgotten. 

That inquiry was launched in the wake of the disappearance of Griffith furniture maker and anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay, who had upset some of the town's Calabrian residents.

The investigator also singled out several 'Ndrangheta family groupings from Plati that had a strong presence in Australia. One of the oldest and biggest families that remained of interest to Italian authorities, he said, was the Barbaros.

McKenzie wrote that as the airport meeting drew to an end, the investigator observed that police around the world tended to play down the existence of Mafia societies unless confronted with their involvement in crimes that made headlines, such as underworld murders, kidnappings or huge drug seizures. 

His words echoed with renewed authority after the dramatic 08.08.08 police operation across Australia.

An Italian prosecutor, Salvatore Curcio, told The Age that he was certain that the "honoured society" had its tentacles firmly in Australia. 

Curcio was one of the officials involved in the operation that uncovered the 2004 plan to import 500 kilograms of cocaine into Australia.

While Curcio jailed scores of Italians in connection with the importation, no one was charged in Australia. The cocaine was never seized, despite the Italian police's insistence it had reached Melbourne's wharves.

In his 2006 interview Curcio warned that the high street-value of ecstasy in Australia meant the country would remain a lucrative market for European suppliers. The Calabrian Mafia, he said, would continue to exploit the high demand for drugs in Australia and adapt to the local law enforcement environment. "To think these people are chicken thieves is a gross error," he said.

In 2005 and 2007 AFP agents seized two separate loads of ecstasy pills which had arrived in Melbourne.

They had been hidden in tins of tomatoes shipped from Italy to Australia.

The first was a 1.2 tonne shipment and the second, on June 28, 2007, 4.4 tonne, or 15 million tablets, with a street value of $440 million.

Both ecstasy shipments were of world record size at the time.

Federal police and customs officers found the ecstasy after gathering intelligence from Australian and European law enforcement agencies to gather evidence.

Arrests were made over the first ecstasy haul and its presence revealed. But the 4.4 tonne shipment was kept secret in the hope doing so would lead to more evidence being gathered against the international syndicate.

After secretly substituting inert pills for the tablets and resealing each tin, it mounted an elaborate surveillance and phone-tapping operation.

This led the Federal Police to discover the crime network's safehouse, a unit in Little Palmerston Street, Carlton, which was allegedly a crucial safe house the drug syndicate.

The AFP bugged the unit with listening devices, gathering evidence crucial the many arrests which would follow.

On July 24, 2008, in Melbourne, customs and AFP officials found a shipping container which had three 50kg bags of cocaine hidden in a load of coffee in it.

The haul was imported from Colombia.

AFP agents seized the cocaine and replaced it with fake drugs and left the container at Melbourne docks in the hope gang members would collect it.

Strong intelligence collected by the AFP since the cocaine arrived suggested the syndicate members became aware the shipment might have been detected by police and they abandoned it.

The eventual bust would be a world record amount for ecstasy and included the largest amount of cocaine ever detected in Victoria.

On Friday August 8, 2008, in a series of dramatic raids across the country, some of Australia's most notorious alleged underworld figures were arrested in connection to the seizure.

AFP agents began raiding properties around Australia early in the day and by 8.30am had arrested 14 men and one woman.

Nine of those arrests were in Melbourne and the other arrests were made in New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia.

Members of various organised crime gangs had collaborated with each other in a rare case of unity to fund and organise the massive ecstasy shipments.

AFP intelligence suggests Australian members of the Calabrian mafia played major roles in the international syndicate.

They teamed up with criminals from other gangs, including some of Lebanese extraction.

The syndicate's alleged mastermind, Pasquale "Pat" Barbaro, 46, and Sharon Ropa, 37, were arrested at the Carlton unit. 

AFP sources told The Age Mr Barbaro travelled frequently between his home town of Tharbogang, near Griffith in New South Wales, and the safehouse.

He was charged in the early '90s, and later cleared, in connection to a massive cannabis plantation on a Riverina farm.

A well-placed source said Barbaro often ventured outside his home and "lived dual lives". 

He was the family man in Griffith, where "he seemed to always have a wedding or funeral to attend". In Melbourne, he was the alleged gangster.

He is the son of Francesco "Little Trees" Barbaro, who was named in the Woodward royal commission as a member of the Griffith-based Calabrian organisation behind the disappearance of Donald Mackay and who were members of, or were linked to, "the honoured society".

Mackay disappeared after he reported the existence of a marijuana crop to the local police. 

His disappearance, the royal commission and the subsequent revelations that former Labor immigration minister Al Grassby was linked to some of Griffith's suspected "honoured society" members, dominated newspaper headlines for months.

Three decades after Justice Philip Woodward urged authorities to not allow "the curtain to fall upon the activities of the organisation in Griffith", police were back in the Riverina town. It was a visit many residents — most of whom, undoubtedly, are honest — will be cursing. When police make big arrests in Griffith, whispers about the Mafia quickly follow.

According to Woodward royal commission, Francesco "Little Trees" Barbaro was born in Plati in September 1937. He earned his nickname after planting citrus saplings on his NSW farm.

His moniker was given to him to allow others to differentiate the citrus farmer from another member of the Griffith cell also named at the royal commission, Francesco "Yoogali" Barbaro. 

Both Francescos had married sisters of Antonio Sergi, another Griffith resident and native of Plati, born in 1935.

Sergi and Robert "Aussie Bob" Trimbole were named as the bosses of the group's cannabis operation.

The commission alleged Francesco "Little Trees" Barbaro had made hundreds of thousands of dollars from "activities associated with cannabis cultivation" and, along with Trimbole and Sergi, was "between 1974 and 1977, (part of) an organisation comprised almost exclusively of persons of Calabrian descent, based in Griffith and Sydney, which engaged in the illicit cultivation, trafficking and distribution of cannabis".

In Griffith, about 100 AFP officers swooped. 

It was 4am when the AFP cars rolled down the main street and parked outside the houses of Pasquale Barbaro and his two Griffith associates, Saverio Zirilli and Pasquale Sergi.

Homes were cordoned off as a team of customs officers arrived with sniffer dogs.

The focus of operation was Pasquale Barbaro's sprawling Italianate mansion. His father Francesco remonstrated with AFP officers when he arrived at the property about 6.30am.

"I have no idea what's happening. I don't know anything about drugs, leave me alone," Mr Barbaro told The Age.

The AFP seized $140,000 in cash and a bounty of weapons at one Griffith property.

Mohamed Abdul Nazeer, 24, and Tanesh Dias, 34, both of West Footscray were both charged with money laundering.

They were remanded until February 4. 

All others were due back in court on March 26.

Alan Saric, 34 of Werribee, was charged with various drug offences.

He and Nazeer were expected to make bail applications early the following week.

John Higgs, 61, of Taylors Lakes, had been targeted by state and federal police for two decades.

The suspected drug baron and founder of the Black Uhlans Outlaw Motorcycle Gang remains a suspect in the theft of secret police files detailing the activities of a police informer from the Victorian drug squad offices in 1996.

He was charged with conspiracy to import MDMA.

Rob Karam (left), was charged with conspiracy to import MDMA, trafficking MDMA, aiding and abetting the importing of cocaine and importing a precursor chemical to manufacture drugs.

Karam is alleged to have used a corrupt network of Melbourne dock and freight workers to facilitate importations.

He is an associate of alleged drug baron Tony Mokbel and was one of Crown Casino's top 200 gamblers before being banned from the casino by Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon.

Also arrested and charged with trafficking MDMA was Francesco Madafferi, 47, of Greenvale, a Melbourne fruit and vegetable market identity who the immigration department sought to deport in the '90s after discovering he had been investigated for "Mafia conspiracy" in Calabria.

Madafferi had a nine-year battle with Australian authorities to remain in Australia. 

A 1998 statement from a Victorian detective was also aired in the Federal Court and contained the view that Madafferi "belongs to a crime family involved with blackmail, extortion and murder, and if allowed to remain in Australia will continue to carry out acts of violence on behalf of an organised criminal syndicate".

Others across four states arrested and charged with various drug offences included: 

Saverio Zirilli, 51, of Tharboganag, NSW, Carmelo Falanga, 43, of Bungle Bungle Ranges, SA, Pasquale Sergi, 45, of Griffith, NSW, Gratian Bran, 51, of Cheltenham, Graeme Potter, 50, of Launceston, Severino Scarponi, 39, of Glenside, SA, Antonio Di Pietro, 41, of Nar Nar Goon, Pino Varallo, 39, of Eltham, Dominic Barbaro, 31, of Lake Wyangan, NSW, Tony Sergi, 34, of Sydenham (right), and Salvatore Agresta, 40, of East Keilor.

Thirteen of those charged in relation to the raids appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court later in the day.

All were remanded in custody except for Madafferi, who was granted bail without appeal.

Prosecutor Brent Young told the court there were 187,000 hours of telephone intercept evidence and 3600 hours of listening device recordings.

He asked for six months to prepare the prosecution case.

AFP Chief Commissioner Mick Keelty said the syndicate represented 60% of all ecstasy imports into Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania.

"This is a major disruption to transnational organised crime, both for this country and abroad." The investigation was the largest ever undertaken by the AFP, Mr Keelty said. 

Police executed more than 45 search warrants in Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands

Pasquale Barbaro was charged with conspiracy to import a commercial quantity of MDMA (ecstasy), trafficking MDMA, and aiding and abetting the importing of cocaine. 

He was remanded appear in court again on March 26.

AFP sources said Ropa frequently used the safe house, travelling between it and her Werribee home. 

She is alleged to be one of three people involved in a $9 million money laundering ring, which allegedly provided funds for drug syndicate.

She appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with laundering money worth more than $1 million, trafficking MDMA, and aiding and abetting the importing of cocaine. 

She was remanded to appear on March 26.

Windows and doors of the alleged safe house, a double-storey brick townhouse, were boarded up on the evening after the raids.

Smashed glass covered the entrance. The front garden had also been dug up.

Broome has previously warned that police agencies have shifted too many resources away from understanding how organised crime networks work, including those structured around family and ethnicity. 

His comments are backed up by another former senior police officer with expertise in Italian organised crime, who says police need to do more to understand how organised crime groups operate.

"As it has evolved here, those involved in Italo-Australian organised crime are in some ways totally different from earlier generations. That is not to say that they are not secretive, clannish and have the strength of community to rely on. But the younger generation are not the same. They do not operate the same or think the same as their parents or grandparents. The code of omerta (silence) is not stuck to," the former police officer says.

"The old-school Italians are mostly old men now. But they were always homebodies within their community and with strong family ties. The new school are far more flamboyant and visible. They are prepared to do business with outsiders."

The NSW Crime Commission recently estimated that ecstasy can be bought in bulk in Europe for about 75 cents a pill, sold at wholesale prices in Australia for $12 to $17 a pill and then sold individually for up to $50 a tablet.

In 2004, the commission reported that "the Italian organised crime network has received relatively little law enforcement attention over the past decade, yet continues to generate substantial wealth".

From then, the Crime Commission dedicated some of its resources to tackling the Italo-Australian-controlled domestic trafficking of cannabis. But, says one senior NSW police source, "it is a matter of too many crooks and too little time".

Danny Moussa, 30, and Fadi Maroun, 26, both of Preston, allegedly sold 11,000 ecstasy tablets with a street value of $330,000 to undercover police.

They were charged with drug trafficking a commercial quantity of MDMA.

Tasmanian Graeme Potter, 50, was extradited to Victoria also charged with drug trafficking.

Twenty two people have been arrested.