Ingo Wünsch, director of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Criminal Police Office, is in the best of spirits when he reports on the results of the major European raid against the ‘ndrangheta mafia organization. The fact that so many suspected mafiosi could be arrested is the result of successful European cooperation between various national investigative authorities and European institutions. The case proves that perseverance and patience, trusting cooperation are the recipe for success in the fight against crime.
In Germany, investigators in Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Thuringia were involved in the raid. The fact that North Rhine-Westphalia played a special role in the preparation and coordination of the large-scale raid on the German side is made clear by the fact that the only press conference in Germany on Wednesday afternoon will be held at the Düsseldorf State Criminal Police Office. North Rhine-Westphalia is “unfortunately too good an area of activity” for the mafia, says Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU). “There is a strong economy and infrastructure here, which unfortunately is also used by criminals for their investments – and you can quickly reach the ports in the Netherlands, where the cocaine arrives.”
During the major raid, 500 emergency services in North Rhine-Westphalia searched a total of 51 houses, apartments, offices and shops, as well as four properties in Thuringia, and executed 18 arrest warrants. The starting points for the major European raid were the findings of the Italian mafia investigators and investigators from Belgium. The entire European large-scale operation was named after the Belgian investigative group “Eureka”.
Hard to find hiding places in the vehicles
The focus of the North Rhine-Westphalian investigators is on the one hand a group of seven suspects who are accused of having run an ice cream parlor in Siegen at the behest of a high-ranking member of the ‘ndrangheta from San Luca. The Italian investigators are convinced that the 36-year-old man is a mastermind in the international cocaine trade. Like another suspect, he is said to have invested part of the proceeds from the drug trade in the Siegen ice cream parlour.
Arrest: In the early morning, a suspect is led out of a residential building in Hagen.
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Image: AFP
In the ice cream parlor, in which several people from Calabria were economically involved, not only profits from illegal drug deals are said to have been laundered. It probably also served as a logistics base for the ‘ndrangheta in North Rhine-Westphalia and as a shelter for gang members who were wanted with a European arrest warrant. “In order to disguise the incriminated origin of the money and the real lender, the 36-year-old Italian suspect officially founded a GmbH and ran the ice cream parlor together with his 38-year-old brother,” the investigators said.
“Damn good job”
The North Rhine-Westphalian investigators also lead a 62-year-old German from the Hattingen area as the other main suspect. He is also considered the main suspect and is suspected of being the leading figure in running a professional international narcotics network and, above all, of having smuggled cocaine for high-ranking members of the ‘ndrangheta. “According to the findings of the European investigative cooperation, the group of perpetrators obtained the narcotics from the Netherlands and Belgium. They were transported to Italy in vehicles that had been extensively converted by specialists in Spain.
The securing of evidence was sometimes time-consuming, as here in Saarlouis, where a filing cabinet was removed.
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Image: dpa
These cars had hiding places for the airtight packaged drugs, which were only noticed during extensive police checks. With the help of the vehicles, the group around the man from Hattingen is said to have managed to transport around 900 kilograms of cocaine to Italy on at least 58 smuggling trips between February 2018 and November 2022 alone. The investigators currently assign 17 suspects to the network surrounding the man from Hattingen.
In addition, the 62-year-old main suspect is said to have transported a ton of cocaine to Italy himself in this way in 2008/2009. NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul praises the investigators’ work as “damn good work”. It was possible to get serious criminals “out of their back rooms and mafia-like parallel worlds and give them a new barred place to stay.
Oliver Huth, head of the task force at the NRW State Criminal Police Office, reports that his authority received very specific information from Italy in July 2020. The police and public prosecutor’s office there had tracked down the accused in North Rhine-Westphalia through a breakdown during a courier trip by two women from Germany to Calabria. “The investigations of our Italian partners meant that North Rhine-Westphalia got a piece of this information cake and was able to get involved in the investigations.” He thus confirmed the reporting of the FAZ and MDR on the anti-mafia operation.
