The movement „Mafia? Nein danke!“ was founded by Laura Garavini together with renowned Italian restaurant-owners immediately after the Duisburg killing. In August 2007 ‘Ndrangheta killers murdered six Italians in front of a restaurant. The German public was shocked. German newspapers came out with headlines like “Wherever there´s pizza, there´s the mafia” and bad jokes circulated like “You can only go seeing Italians with a bulletproof vest on”.

“I was terribly shocked by this killing but on the other hand angry due to the reaction of some German media”, says Laura Garavini, “there is nothing more wrong than the equation Italians = mafia. That means offending the big majority of honest and law-abiding Italians all over the world”. Adopting an idea of the antimafia movement “addiopizzo” in Sicily, the day after the Duisburg killing Laura Garavini called some restaurant-owners she had known for a long time in her hometown Berlin. Whose response turned out impressing: Famous gastronomers like Pino Bianco, Fabio Angilé, Gino Puddu, Enzo di Calogero, Massimo Mannozzi and others agreed spontaneously on joining in. “Mafia? Nein danke!” was presented to journalists from all over Germany in an overcrowded press conference on August 21th.

The positive reactions from the media (even the Brunei Times wrote about “Mafia? Nein danke!”) and from the Italian and German authorities exceeded all the initiators` expectations. Some weeks after Laura Garavini and the Unione Italiani nel Mondo (UIM) founded similar movements in Cologne and in Villingen. All the restaurant-owners committed themselves publicly not to assume any person which is in contact with the mafia and to report every attempt of blackmailing to the police.

“Mafia? Nein danke!” has proved that wherever there are Italians, there is a loud and proud “No” to Mafia – in Italy, in Germany, everywhere. And it proved that unity is strength. In Decembre 2007 a dozen Italian restaurant-owners in Berlin had been threatened to pay protection money. In order to scare the gastronomers and force them to pay, the blackmailers set a restaurant ablaze and a car on fire. But the restaurant-owners were not intimidated. Many of them got in contact with the movement “Mafia? Nein danke!”. 44 gastronomers reported the blackmailing to the police. It was the biggest rebellion ever against protection money in Germany. The Berlin police was able to arrest the blackmailers thanks to the help of the Italian restaurant-owners. The Berlin Police Department and the Antimafia Commission of the Italian Parliament expressed their gratitude to the movement “Mafia? Nein danke!”.