Italian police on Thursday arrested
19 people accused of belonging to the Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta
mafia and operating in the far-northern city of Trento near the
Austrian border.
Police said the operation showed that 'Ndrangheta, which has
long expanded from its southern Italian base, had also put down
roots in Trento.
The operation was carried out in tandem with another one in
Reggio Calabria in which a leading clan, the Serraino cosca, was
busted.
In the latter op, a former city councillor in Reggio Calabria
and ex-police officer, Seby Vecchio, was arrested on charges of
helping the Mob.
'Ndrangheta is Italy's richest and most powerful mafia.
It has outstripped Sicily's Cosa Nostra thanks to its control of
the European cocaine trade.
All its activities have been estimated to be worth the
equivalent of at least three per cent of Italian GDP.
According to a 2013 "Threat Assessment on Italian Organised
Crime" by Europol and the Guardia di Finanza, 'Ndrangheta income
was around $55 billion in 2008.
Its tentacles have spread from its southern Italian base to
central and northern Italy, northern Europe, North and South
America and Australia, among other areas.
Its influence is especially strong in the affluent northern
Italian regions of Lombardy, Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna, but it
has also spread to Lazio and Rome.
Italy's third major mafia is the Camorra, based in and around
Naples.
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