Brescia: Operation “Icaro” by the District Anti-Mafia Prosecutor's Office, 12 arrests and investigations underway for the Italian-Albanian criminal group dedicated to drug trafficking

Starting from the early hours of the morning the State Police of Brescia, through the investigators of the Flying Squad of the Police Headquarters and of the SISCO, carried out, together with the Central Operations Service (SCO) and the Albanian Police, aorder implementing 12 precautionary measures of detention in prison against individuals who are in Albania and in the provinces of Brescia, Milano, Novara and Verona, as well as 8 measures pending preliminary questioning of the suspects, considered responsible for the crime of transnational association aimed at the illicit trafficking of large quantities of cocaine, involving a total of 40 Italian and Albanian suspectsSearches were also carried out in the provinces of Brescia, Turin, Bolzano, Cremona, Pavia, Trento and Treviso.

The investigative activity – within which, under the aegis of Eurojust and with the coordination of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Brescia – DDA and the Albanian SPAK, the Joint Investigative Team (SIC) is underway between the State Police and the Organised Crime Investigation Directorate of the Albanian Police – originates, in the second half of 2020, from aDrug dealing activity recorded inside some entertainment venues on Lake Garda.

The investigations, started following the identification of the supplier of cocaine sold to customers during the evenings, have reconstructed the organizational chart of an Italian-Albanian criminal group that is said to be dedicated to the importation from South America of large quantities of cocaine, brought to the national soil on board articulated trucks that are said to have been supplied in central European countries.

At the top of the Brescia cell there are two Albanian brothers, belonging to one of the main and most dangerous clans of the Albanian mafia, the so-called Cela clan of Elbasan, who would have given orders to a group of trusted men, living in the province of Brescia and other provinces of Northern Italy, carrying out a vast activity of importing and selling narcotic substances, mainly cocaine. The aforementioned organization would have taken care of the drug trafficking phases, from the storage to the distribution of the drugs, to the collection of the proceeds, sent to the organization's top management in Albania, through a proven system that would have made use of the bus drivers who operate the Brescia-Elbasan passenger route.

An important follow-up activity of the investigation took place in November 2021, with the arrest of one of the suspects for the possession of 350 kg of cocaine, which would have been directly destined for the Brescia cell of traffickers.

The investigations also revealed that the members of the criminal association had used “encrypted” telephones, the analysis of which revealed their alleged involvement in the aforementioned Albanian criminal group, dedicated in particular to the international trafficking of hundreds of kilos of cocaine. The investigative activities confirmed that the leaders of the organization, in order to make agreements with suppliers, had systematically traveled to Colombia, Ecuador and the United Arab Emirates, Dubai, where some of the most important Albanian traffickers live.

The investigation activities were conducted with the contribution of the Central Directorate of Criminal Police - Service for International Police Cooperation, the Office of the Security Expert in Tirana and the Central Directorate of Anti-Drug Services as well as, in the executive phase, of Interpol Lyon, the Security Expert in Madrid and the Spanish Police.