A major police operation against the Calabrian mafia Dranghetta began today Wednesday in European countries, including Germany, where searches and arrests were carried out.
Hundreds of German police intervened in six regions of Germany as part of a “large-scale European operation” against “Drangetta leaders and members,” regional prosecutors, including those in Munich, said in a statement. Police operations were also carried out in Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, the report said.
Drangheta is based in the southern Italian region of Calabria and helped Cosa Nostra become the most powerful mafia organization in Italy and one of the most extensive criminal networks in the world.
The suspects are accused of money laundering, tax evasion, fraud and drug smuggling, the German judiciary said in a statement.
In Germany, there have been more than 100 investigations and about thirty arrest warrants executed, four of which were European, according to authorities in the states of Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland.
The Bavarian police said the arrests were the result of an investigation dubbed “Operation Eureka” that lasted more than three years.
According to the same source, Italian and Belgian investigators believe that the criminal organization smuggled almost 25 tons of cocaine between October 2019 and January 2022 and smuggled over 22 million euros from Calabria to Belgium, the Netherlands and South America.
Those arrested include four people in Bavaria, 15 in North Rhine-Westphalia and 10 in the southwestern German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, while police seized evidence from dozens of locations, including homes and offices.
Italy has arrested two suspects wanted in the Saarland in western Germany. The police did not give their names and only said that one of them is 47 years old and the other is 25.
According to the German media MDR and FAZ, today more than 100 arrest warrants must be executed in different countries.
The German prosecutor’s office announced that it would hold a press conference today.
Source: RES
Source: Kathimerini
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