The town square is bordered by apartments covered in faded, peeling paint. At one end stands a Catholic Church that seems too big and grand for this Calabrian hamlet. The Ferrari purrs slowly by.

In the distance, framing the church spire, are the rugged, rocky Aspromonte mountains. Dotted with caves, cliffs and dense scrub, the mountains are a favoured bolt-hole of the N'drangheta, an ancient Mafia society bound by its devotion to tradition, religion, crime and blood ties. And, sometimes, blood itself.

Among other things, Oppido Mamertina is known as a Mafia town. It's famous for hosting a long-running N'drangheta family feud, which led to a local mafia boss being fed alive to pigs in 2012.

The N'drangheta formed as a mountain peasant collective, comprised of clans of village men who banded together against cruel, feudal landowners. Over many decades, it has morphed into something else: one of the most powerful criminal organisations in the world. Oppido's most famous - or infamous - mafia emigre is Melbourne drug trafficker Francesco Madafferi.

Francesco fled Oppido in 1989 to escape serious criminal charges related to violent Mafia and drug activity. When Australian police twigged he was hiding out in Melbourne and sought his deportation in the early 2000s, Frank's brother, Tony Madafferi, launched a political donations and lobbying campaign to get his brother a visa.

He is also a man allegedly capable of violence himself. He's been named as a suspected killer in two coronial inquests, but denies any involvement in impropriety and has never been charged. He's also a handy political fund-raiser, helping the Liberal Party raise tens of thousands of dollars between 1998 and 2014, a vast chunk of which appears to have been aimed at getting his brother Francesco a visa.

In 2015, police commissioner Ken Lay banned Tony Madafferi from Crown Casino on the basis of his alleged organised crime connections. That same year, Fairfax Media and Four Corners travelled to Frank and Tony's home town of Oppido Mamertina as part of a major investigation into the Madafferis' political activity. To get Francesco his visa, Tony Madafferi and other donors enlisted the help of multiple senators and MPs and raised donations of at least $50,000.

Francesco Madafferi was granted a visa by the Howard government, despite the furious protests of police. Months later, he was implicated in a drug trafficking syndicate involved in Australia's biggest ecstasy bust.

A confidential 2013 police report describes the donations and lobbying preceding the visa decision as indicative of "the insidious ways that N'drangheta Transnational Australian Group enter the social or professional world of public officials and through legitimate processes achieve influence".

The bad press and the commissioner's casino ban (Mick Gatto and Tony Mokbel are also banned from the casino) appeared to some in the Calabrian community to have closed off Madafferi's political access.

Suddenly, no political fund-raisers wanted his money. Senior Liberal politician Bruce Billson claimed publicly that he'd been deceived into assisting in the Madafferi visa case after false representations were made to him by a Liberal donor close to the Madafferi family.

Politicians who had previously rubbed shoulders with Tony Madafferi claimed to have been ignorant of the allegations swirling around him.

The Fairfax Media and ABC Four Corners investigation detailed a 2013 fund-raiser hosted by Madafferi at a Docklands venue he part-owned with his drug trafficking brother Francesco. Then Victorian planning minister Matthew Guy was the special guest, although he claimed to have had no idea that Tony Madafferi was at, or hosting, the event.

Senior Labor politician Luke Donnellan didn't buy this, accusing the Liberals in the Victorian parliament of taking "blood money??? stained with misery and crime".

Tony Madafferi hit the headlines again in 2016, when his lawyer stated in an affidavit aired in court that police had falsely accused Tony Madafferi of placing a $200,000 contract on the life of Madafferi associate Joe Acquaro.

Acquaro was later gunned down by an unknown assailant outside his Lygon Street gelateria. There is no suggestion Tony Maddafferi is involved in this unsolved murder, with his legal team describing the allegations of a contract as fanciful, and its correlation with Acquaro's later murder as a coincidence.

But Madafferi's alleged Mafia involvement and proclivity for violence - allegations he vehemently denies - were once again the subject of intense public scrutiny. If he wasn't already, Tony Madafferi appeared by 2016 to be political poison best avoided by those in public office. Not all on Spring Street, though, shared this view.

On a warm summer evening earlier this year, the balding, diminutive green grocer walked into a suburban lobster restaurant with three of his relatives, all Liberal donors. The restaurant, the Lobster Cave, is close enough to Beaumaris beach that diners can sometimes smell the ocean from the footpath tables.

One of Tony Madafferi's dining companions was his cousin Frank Lamattina, who had donated to and lobbied politicians about Francesco's visa years earlier. Another of Madafferi's companions was Vince Doria, who part owned the Docklands venue with the Madafferi brothers when they opened its doors to the Liberals, free of charge, to host Matthew Guy at the 2013 fund-raiser. Madafferi's fourth Lobster Cave dinner companion, Bruno Diaco, is related to Madafferi by marriage.

It was about 7.30pm when the four men walked past several fish tanks to a table near the back of the restaurant. The table had been selected by a Liberal party official because he wanted to avoid drawing attention to the special guest, who was yet to arrive.

A few minutes later, a chauffeur driven car with government number plates pulled up. One of the diners enjoying the warm air at an outside table, and who spoke to Fairfax Media on the condition his identity was not revealed, immediately recognised the small-set man who alighted as a politician seeking to be Victoria's next premier: Matthew Guy.

He, too, entered the restaurant, striding past the fish tanks towards the table at back of the room.

Once there, Guy eased into a seat and joined the alleged head of Melbourne's Mafia for a meal of lobster and Grange. Another person at the restaurant who closely observed Guy and his dining companions (two other Liberal party identities were also at the table) says the meal was not paid for by the Liberal Party. This is a minor detail.

More pressing is the question of why Matthew Guy chose to chew lobster with a man once filmed by federal police meeting drug traffickers in a park and who Victoria Police's Chief Commissioner believes is not fit to enter the state's casino and race tracks. (Tony Madafferi is fighting the casino ban, just as he has previously contested court allegations that he was a Mafia hitman).

This question, and whether the answer has anything to do with the lure of donations for a cash-strapped Liberal Party, is likely to haunt the ambitious politician, particularly since he was so heavily criticised for his previous brush with Madafferi.

Guy, through a spokesman, said the dinner was much larger than the intimate gathering described by other sources, and has denied that donations were sought. He's also denied that he knew in advance that Madafferi would be at the Lobster Cave that night, where only the perfectly legitimate topic of the fruit and vegetable market was discussed.

This time around, though, it may be much harder for Guy to plead ignorance. So far, the man who has built his campaign to become the next premier on being tough-on-crime has not really addressed the questions that arise from his dinner with the man from Oppido Mamertina.