Operation "Eureka": 23 arrests across Italy. A blow to the international 'Ndrangheta network.

From the early hours of today, October 4th, the Carabinieri of the Special Operations Group and the Provincial Command of Reggio Calabria, with the support in the executive phase of the territorially competent Provincial Commands, in Catanzaro, Pescara, Bologna, Brindisi and Rome are executing a precautionary prison measure issued by the Court of Reggio Calabria, at the request of the local Public Prosecutor's Office – District Anti-Mafia Directorate, against 23 individuals already under house arrest and accused in the trial arising from Operation EUREKA.

Last October 1st the Court of Reggio Calabria pronounced first instance ruling, during the abbreviated rite, against 83 defendants, convicting 76 and acquitting 7.

For 23 of these, at the request of the Anti-Mafia District Prosecutor's Office of Reggio Calabria, the GIP Office, considering that the precautionary requirements existed, issued order to increase the precautionary measure, from house arrest to the most painful one of the prison.

Operation “EUREKA” began at dawn on May 3, 2023. when the Carabinieri of the ROS and the Locri Group executed four connected precautionary measures issued by the GIP Office of the Court of Reggio Calabria at the request of the local Public Prosecutor's Office - District Anti-Mafia Directorate, against 108 individuals investigated for various reasons for mafia-type association, external competition in mafia-type association, association aimed at international drug trafficking (with the aggravating circumstance of transnationality and of the huge quantity), illicit production, trafficking and possession of narcotics, possession/trafficking of weapons, including weapons of war, money laundering, aiding and abetting, procuring evasion of punishment, fraudulent transfer of assets and other crimes.

They were also carried out precautionary seizure orders for commercial companies, movable and immovable assets worth approximately €25 million, located in Italy, Portugal, Germany, and France.

The investigation by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Reggio Calabria, coordinated by the National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate, was developed within the framework of two Joint Investigative Teams, one of which took place betweenbetween the DDA of Reggio and the German Public Prosecutor's Offices of Munich I, Koblenz, Saarbrücken and Düsseldorf and the other between the DDA of Reggio Calabria, the Office of the Investigating Judge at the Court of Limburg and the Federal Prosecutor's Office of Brussels coordinated by Eurojust.

The instrument of the Joint Investigative Teams which, also thanks to the authority and trust in the Reggio Calabria District Anti-Mafia Directorate at a European level, had allowed investigations to be carried out simultaneously and in conjunction with each other in the various countries, with real-time acquisition of the circumstantial evidence resulting from the separate investigations.

And in fact, at the same time as the EUREKA operation – which was characterised by the particular breadth of the investigative action and the intense judicial and police cooperation that had affected numerous European and non-European countries - the Belgian and German judicial authorities had executed 15 and 24 restrictive measures respectively, issued by local authorities, against further suspects for drug trafficking and money laundering crimes.

The investigation conducted by the Reggio Calabria Judicial Authority had been started in June 2019 following liaison between the Carabinieri and the Belgian Federal Police who were investigating some individuals linked to the “NIRTA” gang from San Luca (RC) active in Genk (BE), dedicated, among other things, to international drug trafficking.

The activities of the Carabinieri – initially oriented towards the “STRANGIO” family fracascia” of San Luca (RC), attributable to the aforementioned “NIRTA” – had been progressively extended to different families in the same Aspromonte town, also affecting the local area Bianco's 'ndrangheta, within which the internal structures had been reconstructed, numerous conducts relating to the purchase of large quantities of cocaine for the local market (which did not materialize due to the lack of agreement with suppliers), of possession and carrying of war weapons, clandestine returns, reinvestment of illicit capital in business activities – in Italy and abroad – especially in restaurant, tourism and real estate sectors.

As regards international drug trafficking, the operation of three associations adjacent to the major clans of the Ionian district of Reggio, with operational bases in Calabria and branches in various Italian regions and abroad.

The three consortiums, also in synergy with each other, they sourced directly from Colombian, Ecuadorian, Panamanian and Brazilian organizations, resulting in being able to manage a narcotic importation channel from South America to Australia, where the price of the sale of the narcotic results significantly higher than the European market.

There had been numerous episodes of import by sea registered (in the ports of Gioia Tauro, Anversa and Colon), which allowed us to ascertain that, between May 2020 and January 2022, they had been Over 6.000 kg of cocaine were moved, of which more than 3.000 kg were seized: the flows of money linked to the sale of narcotics were managed by organizations composed of individuals of foreign nationality, specialized in pickup money, or from shoulder pads who moved cash across European territory. The money movements involved Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Belgium and the Netherlands.