A remarkable group of women is challenging the power structures of the Sacra Corona Unita, Italy's fourth main organized crime group that operates in southern Puglia, the heel of Italy's boot.
They are doing it at great personal risk, arresting and prosecuting clan members, exposing their crimes and confiscating their businesses, all while working to change local attitudes.
Here is a look at some of these women:
Carla Durante
Durante heads of the Lecce office of the Direzione Investigativa Anti-Mafia, Italy's inter-agency anti-mafia police force, but her rise in the ranks was met with obstacles from the start.
When she told her high school Latin teacher that she wanted to become a police officer, the response was typical of the macho ethos of southern Italy at the time: ''How vulgar.''
The reception wasn't much better in Durante's first job, as a cop in a small mountain town in southern Calabria that was dominated by the 'ndrangheta mafia. The locals in Taurianova were hostile to all law enforcement officers and were not afraid to show it.
For example?