Italy police break up major international drug smuggling ring

Police in Europe, Latin America and Australia have broken up a major international cocaine smuggling ring run by the 'Ndrangheta, one of Italy's most feared and secretive organised crime groups, police said yesterday.

Police said the operation, code-named "Decollo" (Takeoff) was still going on. Some 100 arrest warrants had been issued and were being served, mostly in the southern Calabria region.

Another 40 arrest warrants were issued in the other countries, mostly Colombia.

They told a news conference the crime group, which has taken over the drug smuggling primacy from the Sicilian Mafia, brought industrial quantities of cocaine from Colombia to Italy. The drugs sometimes travelled to Europe via Australia, where members of the local branch of the Italian crime group put some on the local market.

"The main significance is the fact that, internationally, law enforcement agencies from six other countries are able to come together and work as a team and in partnership in order to dismantle an organised crime organisation," said Inspector Peter Duffy of the Australian Federal Police.

Cocaine was sold in Italy or elsewhere in Europe, particularly Spain, the Netherlands, France and Austria.

Pierluigi Vigna, Italy's top anti-Mafia investigator, said cocaine had surpassed heroin as drug of choice for smugglers. "This smuggling financed terrorism and para-military groups in Colombia," Mr Vigna said.

In the three years since the investigation began, some 5.5 tonnes of cocaine had been confiscated.

The success was made possible in part because for the first time police mananged to plant an infiltrator in the 'Ndrangheta.