More than 300 Italian mob arrests made across four countries in major mafia crackdown

MILAN – Police arrested more than 300 suspected members of the ’Ndrangheta criminal organization Thursday in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Bulgaria in a major mafia crackdown.

In Italy, 2,500 officers participated in raids that targeted property valued at 15 million euros ($16.7 million), focusing on the Calabrian town of Vibo Valentina but extending through much of the country.

Those arrested included a former lawmaker, an ex-regional official, a mayor in Calabria, a political party official and a Carabinieri commander previously assigned to the Calabrian capital.

The suspects were held on suspicion of extortion, murder, money laundering and belonging to a Mafia organization.

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‘’It is the biggest operation since the maxi-trial of Palermo,’’ anti-Mafia prosecutor Nicola Gratteri told the news agency ANSA. He referred to a trial against the Sicilian Mafia that lasted from 1986 to early 1992 and led to the convictions of more than 300 people.

‘’We have completely disrupted the clans of Vibo province, but Italian regions were involved from the Alps to Sicily,’’ Gratteri said

The Calabrian ’Ndrangheta has eclipsed the Sicilian Cosa Nostra in power and wealth, infiltrating all sectors of Italian economic and political life. From Calabria, it spread its tentacles to northern Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, to Germany and as far away as Canada and Australia.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Major Italian mafia crackdown: Over 300 arrested in mob raid