Carabinieri police on Monday
arrested 54 alleged mobsters in a crackdown on two elite clans
of the Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta mafia.
The suspects face racketeering and drug trafficking
charges, police said.
The clans allegedly laundered some of their ill-gotten
gains through a Dutch flower import-export company,
investigators said.
The crime syndicates were named as the Commisso clan
operating out of the town of Siderno in Reggio Calabria province
with affiliated in Canada and the Netherlands, and the Coluccio
clan out of Marina di Gioiosa Jonica.
The Commisso clan "can count on at least 500 hitmen",
prosecutors said.
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