Strike against the Italian cocaine mafia: European raid against the ‘Ndrangheta

It may not have been the “greatest raid of all time” against the ‘Ndrangheta, as the exaggerated Italian media reported. But with 108 arrests in 8 different European countries, it was certainly the most international action of its kind to date.

“Operation Eureka” began early Wednesday morning in Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia. In total, more than 150 house searches were carried out. Those arrested are charged with membership of a mafia-like association, cocaine trafficking amounting to several thousand kilos, arms trafficking and money laundering.

In Germany alone, more than 1,000 police officers, including special forces, were deployed in the raid yesterday. There were dozens of house searches and several arrests. In Bavaria alone, more than 130 emergency services searched 10 premises and EU arrest warrants were executed against four people. In Saarland, about 90 emergency services were involved.

According to the Italian Anti-Mafia Directorate (Direzione Nazionale Antimafia, DNA), the focus of the investigation was on the international cocaine trade – for many years a domain of the ‘Ndrangheta, which supplies half the world with the substance. The mafia organization based in Calabria, the southernmost tip of Italy, has excellent connections with the South American drug cartels and earns billions from the drug trade.

Six tons of cocaine for Europe

The cocaine is shipped to the home port of Gioia Tauro, Antwerp or Rotterdam. According to the DNA, six thousand kilograms of cocaine were brought to Europe in the years 2020 to 2022 alone; half of it could be confiscated.

The investigation began in 2009 when the Calabrian owner of a pizzeria in Genk, Belgium, was targeted by judicial authorities. There was reasonable suspicion that the pizzeria was just a front and that the man was in fact a key figure in the ‘Ndrangheta and the cocaine trade. The studies were subsequently extended to more and more European countries.

Most of those arrested are members and followers of the Strangio and Nirto clans from San Luca, Calabria. The mafia nest in the foothills of the Aspromonte Mountains became notorious in 2007 with the massacre at a pizzeria in Duisburg that left six dead: both the perpetrators and the victims were from San Luca.

The ‘Ndrangheta is Italy’s most dangerous and international mafia organization; in Calabria there are about 160 clans with an estimated 6000 members. She can count on a professional network of money launderers across Europe who invest their billions in profits from the cocaine trade in the legal economy – with a preference for real estate, pizzerias, car washes and ice cream parlors – also in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. (bzbasel.ch)