(ANSA-AFP) - ROME, MAY 5 - Italy launched a major
international police operation against the 'Ndrangheta organised
crime group Wednesday, involving law enforcement officials in
Germany, Romania and Spain, prosecutors announced. It targeted
two alleged clans of the mafia group, the Agresta and the Giorgi
families, both from the 'Ndrangheta stronghold of Calabria in
southern Italy. It focused on international drug trafficking,
notably in Piedmont in northern Italy, Calabria, Sardinia and in
Germany, in Baden-Wurttemberg, anti-mafia investigators
announced in a statement. The operation was coordinated by
prosecutors in Turin, northern Italy, and involved hundreds of
officers across the four countries. Assets worth "many millions
of euros" were also being seized in the operation, the statement
said, adding that further details would be unveiled later in the
day. The 'Ndrangheta, rooted in the southern region of Calabria,
has surpassed Sicily's more famous Cosa Nostra to become Italy's
most powerful mafia group, with tentacles in countries
worldwide. Its presence in Germany was highlighted in a massacre
outside a pizzeria in the town of Duisburg in 2007. Six rival
clan members were killed as part of a long-running feud between
families from the town of Calabria's San Luca -- home to the
Giorgi family. (ANSA-AFP).
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