The ‘Ndrangheta, the powerful Calabrian mafia that now has a monopoly on drug trafficking in Europe, has just suffered a severe blow in the old continent. Several European police officers have participated in a large-scale operation that has led to the arrest of 108 individuals linked to the criminal group, suspected of illicit drug and arms trafficking and money laundering. This is an operation called Eureka, for which the police from Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Romania, Brazil and Panama have collaborated, and which has led to the fall of some “high value” people. who played an important role in the organization, Belgian prosecutor Antoon Schotsaert has assured.
The largest number of detainees were in northern Italy, specifically in Milan and Genoa, but authorities have also arrested 25 people in Germany and 15 in Belgium, among other places. After the loss of power of the Cosa Nostra, the much quieter ‘Ndrangheta is now the main Italian mafia, with tentacles in the rest of the continent. The investigation has confirmed this important ramification of the Calabrian group in Europe, as well as the drug flows between South America and Europe, managed by the San Luca clan, in Calabria, in southern Italy.
“We must not lose sight of the integration of criminal structures, especially at times when mafias enter international markets,” said the Italian anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, at a press conference. As he explained, the operation has made it possible to dismantle some transnational organizations specialized in sending money from one country to another and managed by Chinese citizens. The ‘Ndrangheta clans were also involved in trafficking arms from Pakistan to South America, supplying the Brazilian crime group PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) in exchange for shipments of cocaine, according to Europol.
In addition, according to Italian investigators, they have seized companies and real estate assets valued at 25 million euros throughout Europe. The Eurojust representative in Italy, Filippo Spiezia, has defined the operation as the largest and most important carried out at European level, after three years of investigation and the participation of more than 2,700 agents. At a press conference, the authorities spoke of the seizure of tons of heroin and cocaine and spoke of documented transactions worth more than 22 million euros in a single year in this network that used Chinese intermediaries between Italy and Colombia to pay for the drug
This money was reinvested in part in real estate, restaurants, hotels, luxury cars, car wash companies, supermarkets, and other commercial activities. The ‘Ndrangheta have been taking heavy blows for years. The last one, a historic trial that started in 2021, the largest process this organized crime group has ever faced, with more than 350 defendants. According to the calculations of the Catanzaro prosecutor, Nicola Gratteri, his main persecutor, this group has 20,000 members and moves 50,000 million euros every year. For years he hid in the impenetrable Calabrian mountains, with the town of San Luca as a stronghold, benefiting from being much more prudent than the other Italian mafias and from a privileged relationship with cocaine-producing countries. Now the Sicilian Cosa Nostra is charging them with operating discreetly in new sectors, such as renewable energy and online gambling.