(ANSA) -Police smashed an Italo-Albanian crime ring on Tuesday, issuing arrest warrants for 80 suspects accused of trafficking in arms, drugs and immigrants and forcing hundreds of women into sexual slavery. The international operation was coordinated by prosecutors in Calabria with the help of the Albanian police and involved arrests in Italy, Albania and Germany.
Investigators said members of the Calabrian mafia, known as the 'Ndrangheta, had teamed up with crime gangs in Albania to form an immigrant smuggling network. They said the organisation's main activity was prostitution and that hundreds of women had been smuggled into Italy via Albania from Eastern Europe and then forced to work as prostitutes.
It said Albanian gang members were responsible for running the prostitution rings in Calabria and other Italian regions and that the 'Ndrangheta members received arms and drugs in return for their help. Investigators in Albania said the Tuesday operation, dubbed 'Harem', was the most important crackdown on local crime gangs ever carried out on Albanian territory.
Mario Spagnuolo, one of the Catanzaro prosecutors leading the probe, told ANSA that "international judicial cooperation represents a vital element in the fight against organised crime."
Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu praised police and investigators for their work, saying that combatting the 'Ndrangheta was an "absolute priority for public safety in this country."
"This has dealt a hard blow to an Italo-Albanian organisation involved in the international trafficking of immigrants and particularly women," the minister said.
According to a recent report, more than half a million women have been smuggled into Italy over the last four years and forced into sexual slavery. Meanwhile, the government has launched an offensive against the 'Ndrangheta, which is believed to have been responsible for the October murder of an important local politician.
Franco Fortugno, deputy chairman of the regional 'parliament', was gunned down on October 16 as he voted in centre-left primary elections in the town of Locri. The slaying shocked the nation and fuelled fears that the 'Ndrangheta had become even more powerful and dangerous than the Sicilian Mafia.
Local officials have admitted it effectively controls swathes of the region, making most of its money from drug trafficking.
