AFP's Nigel Ryan says Operation Ironside revealed impact of Calabrian mafia 'Ndrangheta in Australia

In extraordinary series of revelations, the Australian Federal Police has revealed the Calabrian-based network known as the 'Ndrangheta uses legitimate businesses in construction, agriculture and catering as fronts for its criminal operations and used bike gangs as their distributors and go-betweens.

The revelations comes from investigations resulting from police eavesdropping on an encrypted phone network widely used by organised crime networks last year, known as Operation Ironside.

Assistant Commissioner Nigel Ryan said that 51 Italian organised crime families had been identified in Australia, and 14 were confirmed 'Ndrangheta-affiliated clans, involving thousands of members.

"They [the 'Ndrangheta] have become so powerful in Australia that they almost own some outlaw motorcycle gangs, who will move drugs around for their 'Ndrangheta financiers, or carry out acts of violence on behalf of the 'Ndrangheta," he said.

Crime bosses based in Calabria are understood to be controlling operations in Australia in which billions of dollars generated by drug sales, particularly cocaine, are at stake.

"Australians are, per capita, some of the highest drug users in the world," Assistant Commissioner Ryan said, with consumers willing to "pay top dollar" for the product.

Assistant Commissioner Ryan said these clans had operated legitimised businesses in Australia for decades living "under the radar by living modest lives, in modest homes".

"They mix their illegitimate money with money from their legitimate construction, agricultural or catering businesses and all of this makes it more difficult to not only identify criminality but to prove it,'' he said.

"People could be living next door to [members of the] 'Ndrangheta and not even know it."

These latest revelations about the long-running influence of organised Italian crime again refuel the debate around their involvement in the murder of Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Colin Winchester in a Deakin in January, 1989.

David Harold Eastman was arrested and charged with the murder and served 19 years in jail. Eastman was acquitted in 2014, paid over $7 million in compensation, and has since disappeared from public view.

However, during the inquest into the murder, it was revealed that the slain senior federal police officer had been a key figure in police Operation Seville, which aimed to identify key figures of the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate, also known as L'Onorata, or the "Honoured Society".

During Operation Seville, 11 Italian men - the so-called "Bungendore 11" - linked to the 'Ndrangheta had been under police surveillance in the early 1980s and were due to face court. All charges against the men were later dropped when a key police informant failed to testify.