Italian police arrested 40 people this Tuesday (30), in a new action against the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, with suspects accused of drug trafficking with counterparts in Brazil and other Latin American countries using clandestine Chinese money laundering networks. money.
“Today’s raid is a crucial operation that has shown how the ‘Ndrangheta is an octopus that reaches everywhere with interconnections across the world,” said Italy’s Financial Police Captain Angelo Santori.
The action comes less than a month after an operation in which European police arrested more than 100 mobsters in a major operation against drug and arms trafficking.
Santori, who led the latest investigation in the northern city of Bologna, said police were executing 40 arrest warrants, including four Albanian and two Chinese suspects, as well as restricting the movements of suspected mafia members in seven Italian regions.
The investigation, which runs from late 2019 to July 2022, traced the trafficking of 1.2 tonnes of cocaine, 450 kg of hashish and 95 kg of marijuana, police said in a statement.
The network managed to handle drug shipments with powerful South American cartels, including Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Colombian, Peruvian, Mexican and Bolivian criminal organizations, police said.
The ‘Ndrangheta, which has its roots in the Calabria region of southern Italy, has overtaken Cosa Nostra as the country’s most powerful mafia group and one of the largest criminal networks in the world.
Several recent investigations have shown how drug cartels in Italy are increasingly using clandestine networks of unlicensed Chinese money brokers to hide cross-border payments.
(Posted by Fabio Mendes)
Source: CNN Brasil
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