An Italian court issued arrest warrants today for 12 people suspected of links with organised crime in southern Italy, including a judge, a police officer and a lawyer, reports said.

Vincenzo Giglio, a 51-year old judge and law professor in Reggio Calabria, was arrested on suspicion of corruption, passing on confidential information and aiding a local gangster, the Corriere della Sera daily said.

The officer and lawyer arrested worked in the nearby resort town of Palmi.

Among the other suspects arrested are three members of the 'Ndrangheta, the powerful crime syndicate which operates in the region of Calabria, as well as a member of ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL).

Police are searching the offices of two other lawyers and another judge from the region as part of the investigation, the media reports said.

The 'Ndrangheta -- whose name comes from the Greek for courage or loyalty -- is one of Italy's four organised crime syndicates, along with the Sicilian Mafia, the Sacra Corona from southeastern Puglia and the Naples-area Camorra.

One of the most powerful and secretive crime syndicates in the world, it has been linked to drug trafficking operations across western and northern Europe, the Americas and Australia and is notoriously difficult to infiltrate.