The investigation, dubbed ‘Roman Holidays,’ began in 2010 and was coordinated by the Fiscal Guard and the Anti-Mafia Prosecutors office of Florence.
“The criminal group had its base in Amsterdam,” said Colon Adriano d’Elia, head of the Anti-Mafia Department of the Financial Police in Florence.He said two individuals “managed the trafficking from the Netherlands into the whole of Europe. In Italy, they would use couriers to sneak cocaine from the Netherlands and marijuana from Albania.”
The couriers would move mainly on wheels, using cars or trucks, as shown by a police video.
“The group of mobsters was very united,” said D’Elia. “They either belonged to the same family or were from the same village. This made investigations very hard.”
Police seized assets valued at € 2 million (US$ 2.5 million) as well as large quantities of drugs.
