Police across Europe on Wednesday arrested more than 100 people in a crackdown on members of the Italian ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group, including some “high value” figures who are suspected of involvement in drugs and weapons trafficking.
A total of 108 people were arrested in Italy and other EU countries on the orders of police based in the southern city of Reggio Calabria, the Italian police said and related investigations led to the arrest of 15 people in Belgium and 24 in Germany, they said, as well as a further 53 detentions in northern Italy.
This is one of the strongest crackdowns on organized crime in the recent past.
“We think that among the arrests were several persons of a high value who played a huge role in the organization, not only in Belgium but in other European countries,” said Belgian federal prosecutor Antoon Schotsaert.
The investigation that led to the arrests spanned Italy, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Romania as well as Brazil and Panama, according to EU law enforcement agency Europol.
The ‘Ndrangheta, which has its roots in the southern Italian region of Calabria, has surpassed the Cosa Nostra as the most powerful mafia group in the country, and one of the largest criminal networks in the world.
“The mafia-style organization is responsible for much of Europe’s cocaine trade, combined with systematic money laundering, bribery, and violence,” Europol said.
The network was devoted primarily to international drug trafficking from South America to Europe and Australia.
In addition to their drug trafficking, the ‘Ndrangheta clans were also involved in running weapons from Pakistan to South America, supplying Brazilian criminal group PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) in exchange for cocaine shipments, Europol added.
Some of the ‘Ndrangheta families targeted have been involved in clan feuds culminating in mass shootings, including the killing of six people in the German city of Duisburg in 2007.
Profits were invested in real estate, restaurants, hotels, car wash companies, supermarkets, and other commercial activities.
“They made transactions of more than 22 million euros in a single year,” Schotsaert told a news conference.
