The idea of Mafia? Nein, Danke! was born in Berlin only a few days after 6 members of a ‘ndrangheta clan had been killed by rivals in Duisburg in August 2007. It was born from the necessity to create an anti-mafia culture in Germany, where the civil society is still today not informed and aware about the presence of organised crime associations in their territory and their activities.

As a first step, only two weeks after the Duisburg incident, the Berlin police and a not yed named group, the later Mafia? Nein Danke! e.V., set up an agreement about intensive cooperation between security forces and members of the Italian community in Berlin, the so called Berlin Sicherheitsvereinbarung. This happened only two weeks after the Duisburg killings and was decisive for the succesfull fight against Italian mobsters proven by the arrest of two Camorra gangsters at new year’s eve of 2007. Armed Special forces (the so-called SEK) blocked these gangsters in the middle of a highly frequented road in the heart of Berlin. These mobsters had asked protection money (pizzo) from entrepreneurs and Italian restaurateurs. Mafia? Nein Danke! e.V. was created to unite them in order to denounce the blackmail and fight it as a collective.

The aim of Mafia? Nein Danke! is to garantee an efficient and effective fight against organized crime and grant security for potential victims. The two main figures behind the Sicherheitsvereinbarung, Bernd Finger, former LKA Berlin and now retired, and Laura Garavini, now member of the Italian parliament, have been rewarded by the Italian State (Bernd Finger was honoured as cavalliere del lavoro) and the German Federal Republic (Laura Garavini was dignified by granting the Bundesverdienstkreuz). The  Sicherheitsvereinbarung itself, the ground-breaking agreement realized by Berlin police and Mafia? Nein Danke! has been rewarded as a best practice organization between civil society and security forces by EU in 2009.

Mafia? Nein Danke! (MND) was registered in Germany, in 2009, as a e.V. (eingetragener Verein), a nonprofit association and one of its main goal is the prevention of criminal activities in Germany.

The aim of the association is to raise awareness about the problem of organized crime groups being active in Germany as well as in Europe, to raise the awareness especially within the civil society and among stakeholders and to spread information about the topic. Moreover, MND fosters the harmonization of the European legislation to create a common front in the fight against organized crime in Europe and wants to emphasize the importance of legality and freedom in a democratic civil society.