GANG ARREST: Mafia group planning to distribute drugs between Italy and Spain detained by police

A Calabrian mafia gang, known as the “Ndrangheta”, who planned to settle in Spain, have been arrested following an operation by the National Police.

The operation has been two-years in the running, and followed the first arrest which was in October 2016 in Italy.

The aim of the gang, according to the police reports, was to establish a permanent link in the south of Spain with their operation in Italy, in order to transport and distribute drugs between both countries, camouflaging the merchandise among the legal cargo transported by trucks that covered that route on a weekly basis.

The culmination of the operation was as a result of the combined efforts of the Spanish National Police and the Italian Polizia Di Stato, coordinated by the Anti-Mafia Prosecutor’s Office of Florence.

The members of the group spread themselves widely throughout the provinces of Granada and Jaén in order to make it more difficult to identify and pin them down.

The operation resulted in the arrest of 25 people, of whom four are members of the ‘Ndrangheta, according to the National Police in a statement.

The officers also seized 200 kilos of narcotics that were ready to be sent from Spain to Italy.