11 arrested in major anti-mafia operation in Italy, Germany

ROME, JAN 17  — At least eleven people were arrested in a major anti-mafia operation carried out in Italy and Germany on Thursday, Italian police said.
Those arrested were alleged members of a mafia clan based in the southeast city of Gela, Sicily, but running its businesses all across the country and in Germany, according to investigators.
All of the suspects were charged with criminal association and drug trafficking, police said in a statement.
The operation was carried out in four Italian areas — including Sicily and the Lazio region surrounding Rome — as well as in the cities of Cologne and Mannheim in West Germany.
Italian police said it moved in cooperation with Germany’s criminal police and special police forces in order to target at least four of the suspects there.
According to prosecutors in Caltanissetta coordinating the operation, these four alleged mobsters were in charge of the illegal drug trade the clan run in the German region of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Thursday’s operation represented the last chapter of a longer criminal investigation run by Caltanissetta prosecutors against the same Sicilian mafia family, which had led to the arrest of 37 people and the seizure of some 18 million euros (20.5 million U.S. dollars) in assets in October 2017. – XINHUA