Gotcha

Listen to Today's Edition:

Authorities launched a major operation against Italy’s most feared mafia organization in eight European countries this week, a move that has been called a “severe blow” to the ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate, the Telegraph reported.

Police in Italy, Germany, France, and other countries raided addresses associated with the criminal organization, which is believed to control most of the cocaine flows into Europe.

Police made more than 150 arrests, the majority of them in Italy. The suspects are charged with a series of offenses, including drug trafficking, gun running, and money laundering.

The raids are part of a top-secret cross-border probe codenamed “Operation Eureka,” which began in Belgium four years ago. At the time, Belgian authorities started investigating a family-run pizzeria that they say had repeated contact with cocaine smugglers.

But as police unveiled the criminal network, authorities from other countries joined the investigation in what observers have described as the biggest cross-border probe in European criminal history.

A major breakthrough came after detectives cracked the organization’s “interception-proof” mobile phones – so-called crypto-phones, which rely on software that the manufacturers claim to be uncrackable.

The ‘Ndrangheta comes from Calabria, the region at the toe of the Italian peninsula. A majority of the main suspects reportedly hail from the hilltop village of San Luca, which has fewer than 4,000 inhabitants.