(ANSA) – ROME, MAY 3 – European police on Wednesday carried
out the biggest ever operation in the EU against the
Calabria-based ‘Ndrangheta mafia making some 150 raids in eight
countries and seizing huge quantities of drugs, cash and
weapons, Belgian prosecutors said.
   
Operation Eureka “is without doubt the biggest operation ever
carried out against the Calabrian mafia in Europe,” the Belgian
prosecutors’ spokespersons told a press conference.
   
“More than a thousand police were involved in this morning’s
raids in Germany, and three thousand in Italy,” where over 100
Ndranghetisti were arrested, the spokespersons said, listing the
countries involved as Belgium , Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal,
France, Romania and Slovenia.
Some 30 arrests were made in Germany where dozens of raids were
carried out and a further 13 in Belgium, where large weapons
caches and huge amounts of cash were seized in over 20 raids,
the spokespersons said.
   
Interior Undersecretary Wanda Ferro said the op had confirmed
the enormous international spread of ‘Ndrangheta, and its huge
recycling operations from its chokehold on the European cocaine
trade.
   
Police said ‘Ndrangheta is richer than late Colombian drug
kingpin Pablo Escobar, whose assets were rated at $70 billion in
today’s money at his death in 1993.
   
They said the Calabrian Mob moves cocaine from Colombia and
Ecuador into Europe through the ports of Rotterdam in
Netherlands and Gioia Tauro in Calabria.
   
In Italy, police arrested 108 people across the country
including the capital Rome and the business capital Milan in a
huge operation targetting ‘Ndrangheta clans.
   
‘Ndrangheta is widely considered to have become Italy’s most
powerful organized-crime syndicate thanks to its control over
much of the cocaine that arrives in Europe and its reach has
stretched outside its southern Italian base and gone beyond the
country’s borders.
   
Wednesday’s operation, which had the code name Eureka, primarily
hit the Nirta-Strangio and Morabito mafia clans in order to
dismantle an international drugs ring.
   
The suspects are accused of crimes including mafia association,
international drugs trafficking, arms trafficking and money
laundering.
   
The operation featured raids in Catanzaro, Vibo Valentia,
Pescara, Milan, Salerno, Catania, Savona, Bologna, Vicenza,
L’Aquila, Ancona, Rome and Cagliari.
   
Earlier this year Europol said it had arrested some 42
‘Ndrangheta fugitives around the world in the last three years.
   
Antonio Strangio and Edgardo Greco are the latest fugitive
‘Ndranghetisti to be caught under the INTERPOL Cooperation
Against ‘Ndrangheta (I-CAN) project, against the Calabrian Mob,
a three-year (2020-2023) initiative bringing together selected
countries for a new level of multilateral police cooperation to
combat ‘Ndrangheta.
   
Some 13 countries as well as Italy are taking part in the
initiative, which reflects the global reach of ‘Ndrangheta and
its vast wealth, stemming from its control of some 80% of the
European cocaine trade.
   
The other countries taking part in I-CAN are: Argentina,
Australia, Austria, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, France,
Germany, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, and Uruguay.
   
According to Interpol, “‘Ndrangheta is one of the most extensive
and powerful criminal organizations in the world.
   
“Originating in the Italian region of Calabria, it has expanded
around the world and continues to grow at a steady rate. Today,
the ‘Ndrangheta is considered the only Italian mafia
organization present on every world continent.”
Its global presence has helped ‘Ndrangheta outstrip Cosa Nostra
as Italy’s most dangerous crime group.
   
Italy’s other mafia is the Camorra from Naples.
   
‘Ndrangheta (from a Greek word meaning ‘heroism’ or ‘virtue’)
once lived in the twin shadow of Cosa Nostra in Sicily and the
Camorra in Naples.
   
While those two syndicates, notably the Sicilians, were feeding
off the transatlantic heroin trade through operations like the
infamous ‘French connection’, ‘Ndrangheta was only just emerging
from its traditional stock-in-trade of kidnappings in the
Calabrian highlands – though it also made its first real
headlines by kidnapping the grandson of the world’s richest
man, John Paul Getty III, for a $17 million ransom in Rome in
1973.
   
It has since become a highly sophisticated global network with a
chokehold on the international drugs trade and control over
swathes of its home turf where police fear to tread, Italian
officials say.
   
As well as being the richest, ‘Ndrangheta is also regarded as
the most impenetrable of Italy’s mafias, with its close-knit
family-based organisation outdoing the Sicilian mafia in its
ability to defeat police efforts to turn members into State
witnesses.
   
European law enforcement agency Europol has identified
‘Ndrangheta as one of the “most threatening” organized
crime groups on the global level, due to its “enormous financial
might” and “immense corruptive power,” with a presence in
Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Switzerland,
Canada, USA, Colombia and Australia, where ‘Ndrangheta turf wars
have gained headlines.
   
In Europe, ‘Ndrangheta only really came into the public eye in
2007, when six clan members were gunned down on the midsummer
Ferragosto holiday in the German city of Duisburg in a feud that
began as a wedding spat in a Calabrian coastal town, San Luca –
Strangio’s home town – in 1991. (ANSA).