Earlier this month, a mega-trial got underway in Italy with more than 300 defendants and 900 witnesses, the biggest mafia trial of its kind in decades. The main crime family in question has allegiances with gangs in South America and Albania. We speak to Federico Varese, a professor of criminology and the author of a number of works on the Russian mafia, Soviet criminal history and the globalisation of mafia groups. He shares his perspective on the trial in his homeland and on mafia groups around the world.