Overview
- Police, working with the Catanzaro anti-mafia office, carried out a multi-province blitz Wednesday that led to 55 custody orders across Calabria, Lombardy, Veneto, Lazio and Campania, with 47 people jailed and 8 placed under residence rules.
- The probe targets the Locale dell’Ariola, a cell of the Calabrian mafia known as the ’Ndrangheta, and strikes the Emanuele and Idà families based in Gerocarne in the Serre Vibonesi area.
- Among those detained is Marco Ferdico, a former Inter ultras leader, whom prosecutors describe as the group’s “terminal” in Milan and Monza Brianza and as the organization’s reference dealer in Northern Italy.
- Police seized more than 410 kilograms of marijuana, about 1.5 kilograms of cocaine, other drugs, and a cache of weapons that included handguns, long guns and a machine pistol.
- Investigators say wiretaps and cooperating witnesses mapped the clans’ hierarchy and chronicled beatings, armed threats and even the shooting of a dog used to intimidate, and they signaled that further investigative work will continue.