This is Australian True Crime International with Michelle Lorry.

In 2006, Dutchwoman Sana DeBoer had a small financial windfall and became one of those

people we read about who bought an incredibly cheap, rundown house in a picturesque village

in Italy's Calabria region.

She was aware of the region's reputation as a mafia stronghold, but found it hard to believe

her sweet neighbours could be involved in anything like that. Eventually, though, Suna began to

realise that the very fabric of everyday life in her village was controlled by a strict code,

enforced by the Drangida, one of the most powerful crime organisations in the world.

Sunny has written a book about her observations and experiences. It's called The New Mafia,

and she joins us to talk about it. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional

owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundri Woi Warang people of the Koolin Nation.

And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

I was invited by an author to help them write their book. So I was working there actually as an editor.

I had never been in the south of Italy. I was immediately, I fell in love with the natural beauty of the place.

I was living on this beautiful hilltop village by the sea. The people in the village was super welcoming to me.

And of course, it took a while also for me to kind of get to understand a little bit more about

the local mafia clans because it's understandable that people wouldn't be very ready to speak about it with me.

Also, another factor was my Italian was still very basic.

So I, it took me quite some years to, you know, to be able to read the papers and to be

able to, you know, eventually start reporting about on the subject and to go and, you know, speak to all kinds of

people about it. I've been telling people about the book and the story I always relay to them is

one night you heard a car explosion and everyone went out on the street and you realized that

...