Guardia di Finanza arrest 40 ‘Ndrangheta suspects for drug trafficking with Chinese money brokers
On Tuesday, Italian police executed 40 arrest warrants in the city of Bologna. Among those arrested were four Albanian suspects along with two Chinese suspects. The alleged ‘Ndrangheta members are accused of trafficking narcotics alongside Latin American allies using exclusive networks of Chinese money brokers.
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This was facilitated by the network ‘fei ch’ien’, where approximately 5 million euros where laundered using this Chinese money transfer system. These cash reserves were then quickly forwarded to financial trading companies in Hong Kong and throughout China. South American cartels and drug agents would then receive these funds through associates abroad.
The operation was ultimately dismantled using information gathered from an encrypted chat software that was taken down in 2021.
The usage of these secretive Chinese brokers has been an increasingly common theme, according to police officials.
Approximately 95 kg of weed, 450 kg of hashish, and 1.3 tons of cocaine were being tracked in this investigation dating back to late 2019.
The ‘Ndrangheta organization has become more powerful and widespread than their Sicilian counterparts in recent years, according to European police.
Police captain of the Guardia di Finanza, Angelo Santori, in a statement said, “Today’s raid is a crucial operation that showed how the ‘Ndrangheta is an octopus that reaches everywhere with interconnections all over the world.”
