It is a large-scale attack on Italy’s powerful mafia organization ‘Ndrangheta: today there were all kinds of searches and arrests in several European countries. In Germany alone, more than 1,000 officers were involved, including special forces.
Searched ten properties in the city and district of Munich
As the police told BR, the raid in Bavaria began early in the morning, around four o’clock. Around 130 officers searched a total of ten properties in the city and district of Munich, including several apartments, as well as a car wash in the Riem arcades. There, investigators found, among other things, several kilos of marijuana. Electronic data carriers and documents were also seized. Four suspects received EU arrest warrants.
In addition to Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Thuringia also took part in the raid. In addition to Italy, Belgium, France, Portugal and Spain also took part across Europe.
Herrmann: “Sensitive blow against ‘Ndrangheta”
The large-scale raid was preceded by years of investigation: the Munich I public prosecutor’s office and the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office have been targeting a woman and seven men since July 2020: all Italian citizens – aged 25 to 48. The main accusation: involvement in the international cocaine trade.
The Bavarian authorities apparently played a not unimportant role in this: Shortly before a crypto messenger service was shut down, they were able to identify a suspect’s mobile phone – and then forward the information to the Italian investigators.
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) spoke of a “milestone for the Italian investigators” with regard to the confiscation of the crypto cell phone in Bavaria. Overall, the Europe-wide arrest and search operation was a “sensitive blow to the ‘Ndrangetha,” said Herrmann.
80 people in Bavaria are attributed to ‘Ndrangheta
Drug and arms trafficking, money laundering, extortion and counterfeiting: These are the most important “business areas” of organized crime in Italy. Above all, the ‘Ndrangheta has also spread to other countries – including Bavaria.
The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution currently assigns around 80 people living in the Free State to the ‘Ndrangheta. And that shouldn’t be all of them. The security authorities assume a high number of unreported cases.
“Germany is a laundry”
What the mafia does in Germany is money laundering. In Italy, for example, the son of a clan chief was quoted as saying: “In Germania possiamo fare tutto. (…) La Germania è una lavanderia” (“In Germany we can do everything – Germany is a laundry”).
In Bavaria, too, there are repeated arrests of clan members and searches as part of Europe-wide raids, most recently in October 2021. At that time, eleven suspected ‘Ndrangheta members were arrested in Italy, Romania and Bavaria, four of them in Bavaria. They are said to have sold luxury cars across national borders and back, without ever moving the vehicles anywhere. However, the accused would have collected sales tax refunds in the millions. The focus of the raid at the time was the Ingolstadt area.