AT LEAST 84 ARRESTED IN MOB SWEEP

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS Hundreds of police in Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands arrested at least 84 suspected mobsters and seized around $3 million Wednesday in a series of co-ordinated raids targeting a powerful Italian organized crime syndicate.

“Today we send a clear message to organized crime groups across Europe,” said Filippo Spiezia, vice-president of Eurojust, the EU prosecution agency that co-ordinated the raids. “They are not the only ones able to operate across borders; so are Europe’s judiciary and law enforcement communities.”

On Tuesday, Italian authorities said they had dismantled the rebuilt upper echelons of the Mafia in the Sicilian capital of Palermo by arresting 46 people, including the man presumed to have taken over as provincial kingpin.

Wednesday’s raids were the culmination of a two-year investigation codenamed Pollino against the powerful ’Ndrangheta criminal group on allegations of cocaine trafficking, money laundering, bribery and violence, said Eurojust.

The ’Ndrangheta is Italy’s most powerful criminal organization, eclipsing by far Sicily’s Cosa Nostra or the Naples-area Camorra.

The Hague-based agency said the massive probe was the biggest of its kind in Europe. Some four tons of cocaine were traced during the investigation.