In the case of a large-scale RAID against the Italian mafia organization ‘Ndrangheta, a total of 84 Suspects arrested in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. In Germany, the police arrested 15 Suspects, including a restaurant owner from Pulheim to this country to be a leading member of the organization. In addition, the investigators seized assets amounting to five million Euro. the By Jana Stegemann and Christian Wernicke, Düsseldorf Jana Stegemann
Jana Stegemann since September 2018 country correspondent for North Rhine-Westphalia. Looks of your office’s balcony in Düsseldorf on the Rhine and the diet, what is a good compensation for the lack of a view of the Alps. Working since 2012 for the SZ: Was five years in Munich as a Panorama-editor, responsible for blue light & with flash light and everything Royale, and then, as a “Newcomer” a year in Munich and Bavaria-resort on the Newsdesk for all of the tavern until Oktoberfest. Country grew up in beautiful münster in a place called new churches that achieved the 2010 global awareness through a fallen flower pot. With 15 years of the first Text in the local newspaper published. Later in Münster and Bielefeld legal studies, German studies, journalism and Islamic studies. Always looking for: stories with heart, people with a sense of humour and all that glitters. Glad to live in a state with modern store hours. Missing, however, the Bavarian lakes.
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Christian Wernicke is back home, at least professionally: The SZ correspondent for North Rhine-Westphalia has learned his craft as a volunteer of the New Rhein/Ruhr Zeitung in the “area”, then the Hamburg-born (Born in 1959) studied in Cologne and in Pennsylvania, USA Economics and Political science. The Rhineland had been shaped by Wernicke in the eighties of the last century, also human. Since the summer of 2017, he tried this life-long training in the Rhine and Ruhr to continue.
in Between, saw Wernicke other worlds. For the weekly newspaper The time he was after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, “the turn of a correspondent” in the GDR, then as a political editor, responsible for Latin America, and North-South issues, since then, in 1996, Rapporteur on the EU, Europe and Nato in Brussels. There he moved in 2002 to the POI. In 2005, the editors of Washington, DC sent him. After eight years in the America of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the father of two children in 2013, moved to Paris, where he attended as a “Correspondant en France” miserably a lot of Terror, but in 2017, the sudden rise of Emmanuel Macron.
For his work was awarded Wernicke, among others, the Theodor-Wolff-Preis (1992), and the national prize for development reporting (1993 and 1996). In the year 2000, the European Parliament awarded him the “Premio Napoli”. In 2011, he received the George F. Kennan commentary award, in 2012, paid tribute to him, the Karl Klasen prize for journalists. Together with his SZ-colleagues Reymer Klüver published Wernicke, 2012 the book “America’s last Chance – Why the world makes re-invent itself”.
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In the “Osteria Da Mario” in the North Rhine-Westphalian town of Pulheim in the quarter-Geyen in Cologne, there are “house-made pasta, Pizza from a 480 degree oven, juicy Hamburger and wines from the lake Garda”. Two weeks ago, the owner Mario Salvatore A. advertises on Facebook proud with a 700-gram Family-Pizza from the stone oven. “My family and I love Italian cuisine”. The bald Italian with the distinctive nose and the black shirt look frontal into the camera, presents the casual, the Pizza in the left Hand. On the net guests praise on review sites his “Italian delicacies”, the “beautiful Pasta”, the “super friendly Service”.
gets, But early Wednesday morning, Mario Salvatore A. very early visit to the very many police officers – want to eat nothing, Netspor instead, they arrested the 45-Year-old out of bed. Mario Salvatore A. is one of the leading German heads of Europe’s most powerful mafia organisation, the ‘Ndrangheta, is accused him of laundering drug trafficking and money. The image-newspaper baptize him shortly after the “godfather of Pulheim”.
investigators have carried out since four o’clock in the morning, under the code name “Pollino” large-scale raids in several European countries, which are targeted against the Calabrian mafia organization ‘Ndrangheta. In Germany, there were inserts in the Metropolitan area of Munich and North Rhine-Westphalia, mainly in the Rhineland and the Ruhr area. It is the second blow against organized crime within 24 hours. On Tuesday morning, 46 suspected members of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra had been arrested in Sicily.
Calabrian Mafia
What makes the ‘Ndrangheta so dangerous
so Now, the ‘Ndrangheta was. By noon, a total of 84 suspects were arrested, including alleged high-ranking members. In addition, up to 4000 kilograms of cocaine and 140 kilograms of Ecstasy pills were seized. The top investigators of the participating countries announced at an international press conference, the European judicial authority, Eurojust, in The Hague.
in The afternoon revealed BKA Vice-President Peter Henzler in Wiesbaden, the current Operation of the “Pollino” was directed especially against an ‘Ndrangheta family, in the context of a feud between two warring families-six members in August 2007, in front of a Restaurant near Duisburg’s main train station had been shot. Henzler estimated a total of about 600 were living in Germany, Italians to the narrowest circles of various Mafia networks: “This is a matter of the blood, the are Italian. No one else is a member of the family.”
Restaurants and ice cream parlours as a “logistical bases”
The ‘Ndrangheta was working “very professionally” about specially protected mobile phones, and Restaurants and ice cream parlours as a “logistical bases” of their illegal transactions. A stooge of the ‘Ndrangheta drugs from South America would bring – especially cocaine – in the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp to Europe and through Germany to Italy to transport. In order to disguise the transactions, will be shared with local chiefs of the ‘Ndrangheta-ticket company on a regular basis: “It has, however, availed nothing in the end,” added Henzler.
440 BKA officials, Federal police officers, hundreds of police and detective police and the special unit GSG9 and the Evidence control unit BFE took searched in Germany 65 suspicious objects, such as ice-cream parlours, restaurants, Hotels, and Restaurants, including Osteria Mario, Salvatore A., a Total of confiscated assets in the amount of five million euros, and arrested in Germany, 15 Suspects, said Horst Bien, the lead attorney in Duisburg.
came On the trail of the alleged Mafia members of the German investigators are also indicated by the discovery of the mass of cocaine in a prepared horse Transporter. The Transporter had been secured two years ago in the UK ferry port of Harwich. The alleged mobsters are so far laid at least 23 such transports of 80 kilograms of cocaine from the Netherlands to England with the load, such as the Cologne police reported.
A groomed horse Transporter brought the investigators to track
The Operation of the “Pollino” was since 2016 of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium with huge personnel costs prepared. Eurojust Vice-President Filippo Spiezia praised at the press conference, minutes of the international cooperation of the investigators. Doable this “extraordinary success” only through the joint cross-border team of investigators, “he would not have been possible without this European approach”.
The Italian Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho, called on the Europeans, the fight against the ‘Ndrangheta continues unabated, to continue. It is a “global organization”, about the Mexican drug mafia as “equal to”: “If we believe, we would have dug the ‘Ndrangheta at the top, then we deceive ourselves.” The Operation Wednesday was only a first step: “There are thousands, should be arrested” and several billions of euros, which would complicate the authorities confiscated.
the Federal criminal police office criminal Aldi rector Hoppe revealed in The Hague that it had given during the two-year investigation repeatedly “stabbing” and Leaks to the Mafia. In addition, Hoppe criticized the German investigators had been hampered by strict legal rules about data retention or Tracking of Suspects due to a lack of equipment for the collection of Vehicle license plate.