In 2007, six people were shot dead outside a pizzeria in the German town of Duisburg. The killings came out of a feud between rival clans from San Luca, a town in Calabria, and they made much of the world aware of the ‘Ndrangheta for the first time. It has not gone away since.
Italy’s most powerful mafia, rooted in the southern region of Calabria, now reaches well beyond it. INTERPOL says it operates in more than 84 countries and is still growing. CBS News, reporting on a European raid, gave a lower count of more than 40. Either way, the group is no longer a regional problem.
What it does, and where the money goes
Drug trafficking is the main source of wealth. CBS described the ‘Ndrangheta as the mafia that controls the bulk of the cocaine flowing into Europe. Money laundering, extortion and trafficking of illegal waste sit alongside it. INTERPOL adds the rigging of public contracts to the list.
The profits do not stay in the shadows. According to CBS, shell companies carry the proceeds into the legitimate economy worldwide. INTERPOL makes the same point from the other side: money reinvested in regular companies strengthens the organization and contaminates honest business. It also warns of the group’s penetration of political and economic circles and the corruption that follows.
The biggest hit so far
On a Wednesday in May 2023, police in eight European countries, plus Brazil and Panama, moved against a network led by ‘Ndrangheta families from San Luca. About 132 people were taken into custody, according to Europol. Around 150 addresses were raided across Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Romania, and more than 2,770 police officers took part. Italian authorities separately seized assets worth 25 million euros ($27.6 million).
Europol called Operation Eureka the largest blow yet against the Italian syndicate. “It is likely the biggest operation ever carried out in Europe against the Calabrese mafia,” said Eric van Duyse, spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor’s office, which had opened the investigation five years earlier.
The case showed how the business runs. Between May 2020 and January 2022, investigators followed more than 6,000 kilogrammes of cocaine moving through the ports of Gioia Tauro in Italy, Antwerp in Belgium and Colon in Panama. More than half was seized. An estimated 22.3 million euros changed hands from the trade, spent on cars and luxury goods and on businesses in France, Portugal and Germany, car washes among them. The network had links to Colombia’s Gulf Clan cartel.
The break came from patient, friendly work. A Belgian police officer told a news conference that he and his team befriended suspects at a port in Belgium and were eventually “invited to join them on their holidays in San Luca.” That friendship gave them key evidence.
A global police response
INTERPOL launched its own programme against the group, called I-CAN, in 2020. Twenty-four countries take part directly. The project has built a criminal analytical file holding more than 75,000 entities linked to the ‘Ndrangheta, and its second phase, running from 2025 to 2027, has a proposed budget of EUR 3.4 million, mainly funded by the Italian Department of Public Security.
Results are piling up. Since January 2025, I-CAN has supported the arrest of more than 60 members worldwide, six of them fugitives. The total tied to the project stands above 160. Among those caught was Giuseppe Palermo, arrested in Bogota, Colombia, in July 2025. INTERPOL calls him the group’s top boss in Latin America, the man who arranged major cocaine purchases from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru and oversaw routes to Europe. A month later, Federico Starnone, wanted since 2024 for coordinating large cocaine shipments to Europe, was arrested in Cali after an INTERPOL Red Notice.
Sources
- INTERPOL Cooperation Against 'Ndrangheta (I-CAN) – Phase 2
- Police crack down on 'Ndrangheta mafia in sweeping bust across Europe – CBS News
