Police operation against ’ndrangheta criminal organization leads to arrest of over 100 people in Europe

By Giovanni Lugarano

ROME (AA) - A sweeping judicial and police operation has led to the arrest of more than 100 people accused of several mafia-related crimes in many European countries, in what authorities described as one of the largest transnational anti-crime operations carried out so far.

The people arrested on Wednesday are accused of crimes ranging from international drug trafficking, money laundering, arms smuggling, and affiliation to the Italy-based ’ndrangheta mafia organization.

“This has been a particularly complex operation, maybe unprecedented,” said Giovanni Bombardieri, the anti-mafia prosecutor in Italy's coastal Reggio Calabria, who led the investigation, and added: “It shows the fight against the ’ndrangheta must be international.”

The authorities involved in the investigation include Italian Carabinieri police, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration in the US, the Brazilian Federal Police, Interpol, Europol, Eurojust, and a number of European national police and judicial authorities.

The ’ndrangheta, a criminal group rooted in the southern Italian region of Calabria, has risen over the years as one of the dominant players in drug trafficking, especially cocaine, with sprawling ramifications across the globe.

The collaboration between judicial and police authorities from different countries and the creation of joint investigation teams in Europe have led in recent years to transnational anti-mafia operations and the arrest of people in many countries.

The recent investigation has led to the arrest of 15 people in Genoa and 38 in Milan, Italy, 24 in Germany, 15 in Belgium, and others in Portugal, Slovenia, and Romania, according to Italian authorities.

Also, authorities said they seized assets with a total value of €25 million (over $27.6 million) in Italy, Portugal, Germany, and France. These assets include companies running restaurants, ice-cream bars, and car-washing facilities, among others, which were used to launder the illegal proceeds from drug trafficking.

The investigation showed deep connections between the ’ndrangheta and South American criminal groups, including the cocaine-trafficking gang Colombian Gulf Clan.

Police and judicial authorities discovered the smuggling of more than six tons of cocaine from South America to Europe between May 2020 and January 2022, of which they managed to seize roughly half of it.

They also provided further evidence that the traffickers heavily use the northern ports of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and Antwerp in Belgium to introduce cocaine in Europe.

Albanian gangs, recently rising criminal groups exerting large control of the criminal activities in these ports, allow the smuggled drugs imported by the ’ndrangheta to exit the ports. The drugs are then distributed across Europe, in close collaboration with the Calabrian mafia, authorities said.

The investigation also spotted money flows related to the criminal activities of around €22.3 million involving Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

The international investigation began in 2019 following contacts between the Italian Carabinieri police and Belgian federal police, who were investigating the activities of members of an ’ndrangheta family in Genk, Belgium.