Italian police target Calabrian Mafia

Italian authorities launched a series of raids yesterday targeting some of the most influential organised crime families in the southern region of Calabria, police said.

About 300 officers took part in the operation, in which 42 people were arrested, and homes were searched and weapons seized, according to police in the Calabrian province of Crotone.

The raids targeted members of the 'Ndrangheta organisation, the Calabrian mafia, who are suspected of crimes including murder, extortion, drug trafficking and association with the mafia, they added. The 'Ndrangheta dominates the European cocaine trade with estimated annual sales of €36 billion and has outgrown its better-known Sicilian peer, the Cosa Nostra.

The organisation gained international notoriety last year after it was blamed for the slaying of six Italian men outside an Italian restaurant in the German city of Duisburg.

Police said the dead were victims of a 'Ndrangheta feud going back more than 16 years in which at least 20 have died.