The recent captures of narcotraffickers in Colombia with direct links to some of the most violent Italian criminal organizations, such as the Camorra and the Calabrian mafia known as the ‘Ndrangheta, have authorities in the country and throughout the Americas on alert, Argentine news site Infobae reported.
“The ‘Ndrangheta has become one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world,” Carolina Sampó, coordinator of Argentina’s Center for Studies on Transnational Organized Crime, told Diálogo on December 3. “It has ramifications in more than 40 countries and has been able to weave alliances with other criminal groups, among them South American drug cartels.”
On October 31, Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office said that an investigation into three men had revealed ties to the ‘Ndrangheta. Authorities arrested the men, identified as César Alexander Hernández Caballero, alias El Calvo; Haroll Miranda Castaño; and José William Méndez Caycedo, on charges of obtaining and shipping cocaine to the port of Gioia Tauro in Calabria, Italy, the Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.
Judicial police investigations concluded that the detainees obtained cocaine shipments in rural areas of the Nariño department. To facilitate the extraction of the drug shipments, they joined forces with the Segunda Marquetalia, a dissident group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombian magazine Alternativa reported.
“In Europe there is a market that demands cocaine, and the only region in the world that produces it is Latin America, where its manufacture is concentrated in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia,” Sampó said.
According to Infobae, ‘Ndrangheta controls 40 percent of cocaine trafficking worldwide and has close ties with the main drug cartels in the region.
“‘Ndrangheta’s main source of income is narcotrafficking. In addition, they engage in arms trafficking and prostitution, to finance themselves,” Sampó added. “Then, they get involved in different sectors of the Latin American economy, such as in the construction of large real estate and financial investments, with the aim of laundering illicit money.”
One kingpin at a time
In another joint operation, also carried out in October, the Colombian National Police and anti-drug agencies from Italy and the United Kingdom captured in Medellín Luigi Belvedere, a key narcotrafficker of Italy’s Camorra mafia who is wanted in 196 countries for international cocaine trafficking, Colombian daily El Espectador reported.
The arrest was made as part of Operation Caronte, which dismantled Belvedere’s network to purchase and ship large cocaine shipments from Latin America to Italy, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands.
“Belvedere, who was one of Italy’s most dangerous fugitives, was hiding out in Medellín, where he rented multiple luxury apartments through intermediaries to evade the authorities,” El Espectador reported.
According to local authorities, his arrest dismantled a key part of the Italian mafia in South America, and “represents a major blow to a criminal organization that has threatened transnational security,” El Espectador reported.
In yet another October operation in Medellín, Colombian police arrested Gustavo Nocella, another Italian mafia boss linked to clans of Rinaldi-Formicola, Amato-Pagano, and De Micco, based in Naples, news site ColombiaOne reported. Nocella, alias Ermes, who was arrested as part of Operation Minerva following a six-month investigation with the Italian Police, Europol, and Interpol, is suspected of coordinating and facilitating cocaine trafficking from Colombia to The Netherlands.
Italian alliance
For InSight Crime, an organization dedicated to the study of organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, the presence of the Camorra in Colombia “is not an isolated event but responds to a change in the power structure of Colombian narcotrafficking in recent years, which opened its market to European buyers without the need for traditional intermediaries.”
For decades, the ‘Ndrangheta, and before it the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, maintained a dominant role in cocaine trafficking from Latin America to Europe. Their influence was cemented through strategic alliances with paramilitary narcotrafficking group the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which allowed them to consolidate distribution networks, security, and logistics in Colombia, InSight Crime indicated.
The Italian mafia has also extended its operations to Ecuador in recent years. According to investigations documented by Italian Prosecutor Giovanni Bombardieri, the ‘Ndrangheta, through narcotrafficking, invests millions of dollars in the business world, thus contaminating Ecuador’s legal economy, Ecuadorian daily Expreso reported. Giovanni pointed out that the Calabrian group has Ecuadorian port operators immersed in the criminal logistics to traffic cocaine to Europe.
Global fight
On November 6, Spanish authorities, in a joint operation with Ecuador, seized 13 tons of cocaine in the Port of Algeciras hidden in a shipment of bananas coming from Guayaquil, “becoming the largest seizure of this drug in the history of Spain and one of the most important worldwide,” international television news network Euronews reported.
“The fight to counteract the advance of this scourge must be tackled with a global approach, allowing all countries to attack and pursue these criminal organizations in the same way, to prevent their expansion,” Sampó said. “Ideally to establish and deepen efficient cooperation mechanisms between States, through their security and intelligence agencies, to prevent criminal groups from continuing to profit from and cause harm to humanity.”
The following day, on November 7, an international police coalition, coordinated by INTERPOL, arrested more than 100 key members of the ‘Ndrangheta during several operations in Germany and Italy.
INTERPOL said in a statement that the fight against the mafia is framed under Project I-CAN, which involves the exchange of police information to dismantle the criminal organization’s networks, disrupt its operations, and arrest fugitives.
“The only way to combat these mafias efficiently is transnationally, strengthening cooperation between Latin America and Europe to counteract the advance of the Italian mafias in the region with drug seizures, and to deepen investigations into money laundering,” Sampó concluded. “That way, neutralizing the operational actions of these criminal groups will be possible.”
