
An anti-drug mega-operation has been developed by the police in Bolzano, Italy, to attack a large criminal group that trafficked drugs between Albania and Belgium.
46 people of different nationalities were put in handcuffs, a large part of whom are Albanian citizens residing in Italy, and large amounts of drugs worth 22 million euros were seized.
The Italian authorities report that 15 people were caught in the act, in the early hours of the morning when they were surprised by the noise of a police helicopter over their apartment, while dozens of police officers were engaged in the field.
Of the 46 arrested, 34 are foreigners, most of whom are Albanian citizens, but also Tunisians, Iraqis, English and French.
Large quantities of drugs were also seized, more specifically 23.7 kilograms of hashish, 20 kilograms of cannabis and 20.7 kilograms of cocaine.
Also, 22 properties and 2 shops in Bolzano, Italy, believed to have been bought with dirty money from drug trafficking, have been seized.
It all started with the seizure of only one kg of cocaine from an Albanian citizen in Piana Rotaliana in 2019. By reconstructing the contacts of the arrested person, a group of 6 Albanians was traced who brought the drug into the area from Albania via the Balkan route.
"From here, 3 other groups involved in the traffic were discovered. One of them, consisting of 16 other people (almost all Albanians), had an open supply channel to Northern Europe (in particular from Belgium). More limited in the regional territory, however, two other criminal associations operated: one of Albanian origin and one Tunisian citizen.
The four organisms were closely related by friendship and, sometimes, kinship. This comes from wiretapping and environmental wiretapping. The work on the street was sometimes frantic considering that over 100 drug sales were discovered from a single distributor. In short, everything inevitably goes back there: to the hunger for drugs in our territory that feeds a monster of money and the sale of death", declare the Italian authorities.