Two anti-mafia operations in Italy target powerful Calabrian clans

Italian police arrested 11 people in two major operations against the Calabrian mafia on Tuesday.

The raids targeted two powerful clans of the 'Ndrangheta -- the Pesce and Bellocco crime families -- based in the southern town of Rosarno in the province of Reggio Calabria.

Those arrested were variously charged with mafia association, unlawful competition aggravated by violent methods, drug trafficking, and fictitious registration of assets.

Another key charge was that of aiding and abetting top boss Marcello Pesce, who was listed among the most wanted fugitives in Italy, and arrested in December.

A son of the mafia boss was among the suspects arrested, according to prosecutors of the Anti-Mafia District Directorate (DDA) in Reggio Calabria coordinating the operations.

The two clans are thought to control all illegal activities, and infiltrate the legal economy, in the whole plain of Gioia Tauro, which comprises the country's largest container port.

Their business would allegedly focus on drug trafficking, stretching from Sicily and Calabria to Northern Italy. Economic assets worth 4 million euros (4.26 million U.S. dollars) were seized in the second operation on Tuesday, including property, firms, and bank accounts, investigators told a press conference.

"Here we face a criminal organization that has succeeded in shifting its interests from cocaine to marijuana trafficking," Reggio Calabria chief prosecutor Federico Cafiero de Raho told reporters.

"They were able to do so due to their strong ties with traffickers (based) on the east coast of Sicily," he said. Endit