Raid against mafia – also a police officer among the arrested
It is about large quantities of cheese, olive oil and tomato canned, but it is all about the mafia, about supposedly injured honor and severe fraud: In the morning hours, investigators in Germany and Italy arrested dozens of suspects in a common raid against organized crime. 34 arrest warrants had been enforced, including one against a police officer from Baden-Württemberg, said the public prosecutor and the police.
A video spread by the Italian police shows scenes from the police action. Photo: polzia di Stato/dpa
The 46-year-old police chief, who is employed by the Aalen police headquarters in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, is therefore accused of treason. According to the investigators, the suspicion of him has existed since 2021. « This enabled us to ensure that no further information is passed on, » said the police chief of Aalen, Reiner Möller.
According to him, the official, who has no Italian roots, was arrested in the Stuttgart area. He also worked there.
« If the police receive findings about misconduct from individual police officers, criminal and business law measures will be extensively checked and initiated, » said a spokesman for the Baden-Württemberg Interior Ministry. « The people in our country rightly have a high level of trust in the police. » In order to do justice to this trust, the police also consistently pursue possible misconduct in their ranks.
Actions in three German federal states
The majority of the majority of Italian -born, among other things, are said to have connections to the Calabrian mafia ‘Ndrangheta, the investigators said. A total of 40 objects were searched for around two hours of use in Germany and Italy.
In the focus of the German authorities, the state of Baden-Württemberg, arrests and searches were also in Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia and the Saarland. According to the authorities, the operation goes back to an investigation cooperation with the Italian authorities to combat the mafia and organized crime. Firearms, ammunition and digital storage media, business documents and cash were ensured.
Nazipropaganda, racist memes and 50 kilograms of explosives
Fraud with food, among other things,
Between April 2020 and mid -2022, the alleged mafiosi are said to have banned a company in Hungary and companies in Italy as members of actual German companies from the food industry. They would have ordered products and machines for the production of pizza in large quantities. The companies trusted the good reputation and delivered the goods to an alleged camp of a non -existent company, as the public prosecutor said.
Because invoices were not paid and the products were sold to restaurateurs in Germany, damage of several hundred thousand euros was incurred. The restaurateurs knew about the mafia membership of the providers. For fear, they were dealt with on the trade, it said.
Connections to the mafia organization ‘Ndrangheta
Of 20 suspects in Italy, 13 are now in prison, seven were placed under house arrest. They are accused of connections to the Calabrian mafia ‘Ndrangheta, the Italian police said. The suspects could be tracked down in the provinces of Cosenza and Crotone in Calabria. They are said to have been involved in the establishment of a criminal organization that is also said to have their offshoots in Germany.
The mafia organization ‘Ndrangheta from the southern Italian region of Calabria is one of the great criminals in Italy with relationships all over the world. It is considered more dangerous than the Sicilian Cosa Nostra or the Camorra from Naples. The ‘Ndrangheta does most of its business with drugs. According to experts, she has a dominant position on the European cocaine market. It is also active in Germany.
Luxembourels have long since on the map
According to an answer from the Interior Ministry in Mainz, the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) currently upgrades 27 people with a residence in Rhineland-Palatinate of Italian organized crime (as of February 3, 2025). Accordingly, everyone has an Italian citizenship. A year earlier there were a total of 30 people in the country.
According to the answer, the Italian mafia in Rhineland-Palatinate is associated with criminal offenses such as commercial fraud by manipulating tax documents for the shortening of corporate taxes as well as particularly severe tax evasion, commercial and gang forgery and credit fraud by manipulating necessary documents.
High number of unreported cases on Mafiosi in Baden-Württemberg
In Baden-Württemberg, experts assume a high number of unreported cases of Mafiosi. Almost a quarter of the relatives of Italian organized crime in Germany live in Baden-Württemberg. This is attributed to the geographical proximity to Italy, but also to the economic power of the federal state.
According to the Italian police, the recent use also supported the Interpol project I-CAN (Interpol Cooperation Against ‘Ndrangheta). With the help of the I-CAN project, more than 100 suspects have been arrested worldwide since its start in 2020. Around 20 countries are involved in the project, Germany and Italy are increasingly committed there.
