The macro anti-mafia operation launched this Wednesday in several European countries focuses on “more than a hundred suspected members of the Calabrian mafia”, the ‘Ndrangheta, reported the Belgian prosecutor’s office, adding that around twenty raids were carried out in Belgium.
The ‘Ndrangheta, which traces its roots to the southern region of Calabria, the tip of Italy’s boot, has surpassed Cosa Nostra as the country’s most powerful mafia group and one of the world’s largest criminal networks.
The Carabinieri made 108 arrests across the country in an investigation based in the southern city of Reggio Calabria, it said in a statement. Another 15 people were detained in the northwestern port of Genoa.
This “large-scale operation” was organized within the framework of a “dossier opened by the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office”, in cooperation with the Belgian judicial police and the European agencies Europol and Eurojust, detailed the same source. According to the German authorities, this Wednesday similar devices were carried out in Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Those detained in Germany included four people in Bavaria, 15 in North Rhine-Westphalia and 10 in the southwestern German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Police have seized potential evidence in dozens of places, including homes and offices.
The suspects are charged with money laundering, criminal tax evasion, fraud and drug smuggling, according to the Düsseldorf, Koblenz, Saarrebruck and Munich public prosecutors in a joint statement with the state police in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate. and Saar.
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