SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
In Ostia, a seaside town near Rome, a small cafe's teaching young people more than how to draw off an espresso. They're learning how to run a business and keep the mafia out of it. The cafe was founded by an investigative journalist who helped expose the criminal clans that once controlled much of the town's beachfront and by her eldest son who spent his adolescence under police protection. Megan Williams has this story.
MEGAN WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Saturday afternoon at Ohana, a sun-filled cafe where clusters of young customers sit sipping bright-orange spritzes and glasses of sangria.
LORENZO COLUZZI: (Speaking Italian).
WILLIAMS: Behind the bar is 21-year-old law student Lorenzo Coluzzi (ph), his right arm tattooed with reference to ancient Greek history.
COLUZZI: (Speaking Italian).
WILLIAMS: The famous epitaph from the Battle of Thermopylae honoring the Spartans who died trying to hold back a massive Persian army.
COLUZZI: That battle was 300 Spartans against lots of Persian. And so I can do whatever I want if I believe in myself.
WILLIAMS: Coluzzi knows something about facing long odds. He and his family have spent more than a decade living with threats from organized crime. For much of his teen years, Coluzzi lived with armed officers following his every move, even on dates with his girlfriend.
COLUZZI: Yeah - 24 hours per day. I was ashamed for my type of life because it wasn't normal that I have to go with my girlfriend, and I have with me two men that have to stay with me very near.
WILLIAMS: When that police protection ended four years ago, he says...
COLUZZI: The first thing, I was free finally, finally free, because I can go out with my friends without someone who is watching me. But lots of people think that living under protection is cool, but it's absolutely not.
WILLIAMS: His mother is Federica Angeli, an investigative journalist who exposed mafia clans that had a near stranglehold on beach concessions along Ostia's coast. In 2013, a local mafia boss discovered she was recording him with a hidden camera. He pulled her into a room, put a gun on the table between them and threatened her three young children. A few weeks later, she witnessed a mafia shootout and agreed to testify. Within hours, police put her under armed protection.
FEDERICA ANGELI: (Speaking Italian).
WILLIAMS: "As a journalist," she says, "you can't denounce something and then become complicit. I thought about my children. Did I want to teach them how to bow their heads to the mafia out of fear or try to change things?"
Part of Angeli's effort to try to change things is this cafe, a short walk from the beachfront where she helped expose mafia control. The idea came from watching what happens when the Italian government seizes businesses from the mafia. Many struggle to survive. Angeli says the mafia often makes illegal renovations or relies on its own suppliers. Fixing all that and bringing everything up to code can cost so much that businesses fail, leaving some locals saying things were better when the mafia was in charge.
ANGELI: (Speaking Italian).
WILLIAMS: "I can't stand hearing that," she says. "I sacrificed my freedom, and now people are saying these places were better when the mafia ran them." So Angeli created a training program here called Management Antimafia. Young people are paid to learn how to run a business legally, from checking permits, paying taxes and keeping accounts to choosing suppliers, making coffee and serving customers. Angeli handles one part of the curriculum herself.
ANGELI: (Speaking Italian).
WILLIAMS: "Obviously, I teach lessons about the mafia, not how to make a good spritz," she jokes. One of the trainees is 18-year-old Sasha Profili (ph) who lives nearby. It's his first job.
SASHA PROFILI: So I learned everything from zero. So I learned how to do coffees, how to deal with customers. I learned a lot of things.
WILLIAMS: He's also learning about the less-visible ways organized crime can infiltrate ordinary businesses. Angeli says mafia-linked suppliers can lure owners with cheap, uncertified products, then demand more money once they're dependent on them. And he's learning about more everyday abuses, like paying workers under the table.
PROFILI: One of the things that I've seen done by a lot of restaurant, they have ways to make money without declaring what they're doing.
WILLIAMS: This afternoon, Profili is getting ready for a new kind of challenge. He's going to interview a visiting author about her book on democracy in front of an audience in the cafe's garden.
PROFILI: Yes. It's the first time, also, to be here in front of a lot of people and talking about a book. So yes, it will be a new experience for me.
WILLIAMS: Are you nervous?
PROFILI: Maybe a little bit. Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
WILLIAMS: Among the young people Angeli hopes will one day train at Ohana are the kids of mafia families. Her son knows some of them, still sees them in and around town.
COLUZZI: But I don't feel angry or negative feelings. I think that I would like to help them to change their life.
WILLIAMS: For NPR News, I'm Megan Williams in Ostia. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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