The macro anti-mafia operation launched on Wednesday in several European countries focuses on "more than a hundred alleged members of the Calabrian mafia", the 'Ndrangheta, reported the Belgian prosecutor's office, adding that a score of raids were carried out in Belgium.
The 'Ndrangheta, which has its roots in the southern region of Calabria, the tip of Italy's boot, has overtaken Cosa Nostra as the country's most powerful mafia group and one of the world's largest criminal networks.
The Carabinieri carried out 108 arrests across the country in an investigation based in the southern city of Reggio Calabria, they 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, the same source detailed. According to German authorities, similar devices were carried out on Wednesday in Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Among those arrested in Germany were 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 locations, including homes and offices.
The suspects are charged with money laundering, criminal tax evasion, fraud and drug smuggling, according to prosecutors in Dusseldorf, Koblenz, Saarbrücken and Munich in a joint statement with state police in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland.
- Mafia
- Germany
- Europe
- Italy
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