Italian police on
Friday broke up a Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia clan operation in
and around Rosarno and other parts of Italy.
Some 45 people were arrested in the probe into the Bellocco
clan.
The operation, codenamed 'Magna', busted the Bellocco clan of
Rosarno and its units operating outside Calabria, in particular
in Lazio, Emilia Romagna and Lombardy, police said.
Those under investigation are accused of mafia association,
international drugs trafficking, possession of weapons, and
robbery aggravated by using mafia methods, and by the
transnational nature of the crimes.
Police said they had arrested "the entire leadership" of the
Bellocco clan.
They said the clan had enforced a "capillary control of their
territory", infiltrating the legitimate economy of the areas in
which they operated.
The clan also relied on white collar criminals in Argentina
who helped organise the trafficking of "huge" quantities of
drugs, police said.
'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.
It has since become a highly sophisticated global network
with a chokehold on the European cocaine 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.
The European law enforcement agency Europol has identified
the 'Ndrangheta mafia 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, US, Colombia and Australia, where 'Ndrangheta turf wars
have gained headlines.
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