Trans-Atlantic mafia ring smashed
Print Edition
Police in Italy and New York broke up a major trans-Atlantic mafia ring yesterday, arresting 24 people accused of plotting to move hundreds of millions of dollars in drugs between South America, Italy and the United States.
The sting operation involving undercover agents and wire taps offered more evidence the Calabria-based ‘Ndrangheta had overtaken its Sicilian cousin, the Cosa Nostra, and was trying to make inroads in the United States by forging ties with one of the traditional New York mob families, the Gambinos.
FBI and Italian agents jointly carried out “Operation New Bridge” simultaneously just after midnight in Brooklyn and just before dawn in Italy, American and Italian officials told a news conference in Rome.
Those arrested were accused of international drugs trafficking, money laundering and membership in organized crime.
The clans of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, a version of the Sicilian mafia on the southern mainland, and members of the Gambino mafia family in New York, were in the advanced stages of plans to smuggle some 500 kilograms of pure cocaine from Guyana in South America to the port of Gioia Tauro in Calabria.
Italian investigators estimated the street value of the cocaine after cutting at about 750 million euros (US$1billion).
The drugs, supplied by Latin American drug cartels, were to have been sent to Italy hidden in shipments of canned fruit. Some of it would then have been smuggled to the United States.
“The ‘Ndrangheta determined to move deadly narcotics across international boundaries, attempting to build a bridge of criminality and corruption to stretch from South America to Italy and back to New York,” said assistant US attorney Marshall Miller.
He told reporters at a news conference at the headquarters of Italy’s anti-Mafia investigators with other US and Italian investigators that the operation struck at “the heart of international organized crime.”
The operation began in 2012 when investigators detected a plan by the Ursino clan of the ‘Ndrangheta to smuggle large amounts of drugs.
An undercover agent was dispatched to Italy and was successful in infiltrating the clan. An undercover agent was also involved in the handover of 1.3 kg of heroin in New York as part of the infiltration operation.
They said the plan involved ‘Ndrangheta members in Italy and New York who had forged an alliance with the Gambino family of the US Mafia.
“What we see here is ‘Ndrangheta attempting to gain a foothold in the New York area and the US,” Miller said.
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