They committed petty fraud for four cows, … then with cigarettes.”[2] The De Stefano brothers would come to prominence as members of the clan of Domenico Tripodo, the old capobastone of Reggio Calabria, who had acquired considerable financial resources through tobacco smuggling.

[5] In the second half of the 1970s, he co-founded with Girolamo Piromalli La Santa, a branch of the Italian 'ndrangheta Born with the purpose of establishing permanent contacts between the Freemasonry, the mafia and political world.

[7][8] His cousin Giorgio De Stefano was prosecuted and jailed for his activity as mediator between the Freemasonry-mafia and a set of prominent Italian politicians.

[9] Paul supported his cousin, the lawyer Giorgio De Stefano, to be elected for the Christian Democrat party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana).

However, due to pre-arrest bail (Italian: libertà su cauzione), release on ground of health and being a fugitive, he did not spend many days in jail.

The conflict exploded in 1985, two years after the marriage and saw practically all the ‘ndrine in the city of Reggio Calabria grouped into either one of two opposing factions.

[13][14][15] According to the sociologist Pino Arlacchi, the background of the war was the attempt of the De Stefano brothers to turn their accumulated wealth and power to account by claiming contracts for the Gioia Tauro port.

[19] According to prosecutor Salvatore Boemi, De Stefano was the representation of the manager-criminal controlling a crime multinational with joint ventures with Raffaele Cutolo from the Camorra and Nitto Santapaola and Francesco Ferrera from Cosa Nostra in Catania.