2023-05-03 16:38:56
► How was this European dragnet orchestrated?
The operation, called “Eureka”, was planned for a long time, after three years of investigations against the Calabrian mafia, the very dreaded “Ndrangheta”. Its scope is extraordinary: 132 arrests, 150 searches and seizures in ten countries in Europe (Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Romania, Belgium) but also in Latin America (Brazil, Panama). “This is undoubtedly the largest operation ever carried out in Europe against the Calabrian mafia”, said Eric Van Duyse, spokesperson for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, at a press conference.
In particular, it mobilized a thousand police officers in Germany and “1,400 in Italy”, on the orders of a Belgian judge investigating since 2018, he said. Across the Rhine, around a hundred searches were carried out in the Länder of Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland. The Ndrangheta dominates the cocaine market on the Old Continent, where it is also implicated in cases of money laundering, corruption and violence.
► What do we know more precisely about the “Ndrangheta”?
The organization is reputed to have become the most important Italian mafia, ahead of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Neapolitan Camorra, thanks to cocaine trafficking. Founded on a very family structure, it was born in Calabria, in the extreme south of the Italian peninsula, but it has become influential in the north of the country and in other regions of the world. Active in some forty countries, it is the only mafia present on all continents, according to experts. According to Italian justice, it has 20,000 members worldwide and generates an annual turnover of more than 50 billion euros, largely from cocaine trafficking.
► Is Europe better protected against the scourge of drugs?
Portuguese authorities announced on Tuesday May 2 that they had seized 4.2 tonnes of cocaine from Colombia hidden in pallets of bananas, in the port of Setubal, located 30 km south of Lisbon. Year after year, records are also broken in the ports of northern Europe. At the port of Antwerp, 110 tonnes were seized by customs in 2022, compared to 90 in 2021 and 36 tonnes in 2016… still in containers of bananas, pineapples or wood. In recent years, major international investigations have multiplied against the mafia. “The only way to counter it is to do it with a more efficient global network,” commented the prefect Vittorio Rizzi, central director of the Italian criminal police, quoted by Interpol.
In 2020, the “I-CAN” program is created. Rome, through Interpol, then began to inform the countries where the Ndrangheta operates and to structure the repressive arsenal. Before Wednesday’s operation, 46 members of this mafia had been arrested, including the famous Rocco Morabito. In 2021, a maxi-trial with more than 300 defendants, alleged members or relatives of the Ndrangheta, opened, exposing the network of politicians, lawyers and businessmen accused of collusion with the mafia.
► Is there a fight against drugs in the countries where drugs are manufactured?
This repressive logic also prevails across the Atlantic, where the coca leaf necessary for the manufacture of cocaine is grown. Some operations also surprise by their gigantism, like the dragnet carried out from March 12 to April 2 in Central and South America.
In all, 203 tons of cocaine and other narcotics valued at around $5.7 billion were seized, along with 372 tons of chemicals used in the manufacture of drugs. This continental operation, dubbed “Trigger IX”, also reached a record, with 14,260 arrests and 8,263 illicit firearms confiscated.
#world #organized #cocaine