Update | Italian police smash ‘Chinese mafia’ gang they say spread across Europe and dominated transport industry
‘If you go with me, you will live. If you go against me, you will die’: recording of alleged crime boss Zhang Naizhong
Italy ordered the arrest of 33 people on Thursday on suspicion of running a Chinese mafia group involved in gambling, prostitution and drugs, and which dominated the transport of Chinese goods across Europe.
The group’s base was in Prato, near Florence, a hub for the textile industry where many factories are owned and run by Chinese, police said in a statement.
But the network had members in other parts of Italy and across Europe, with arrest warrants issued in Rome, Milan, Padua, Paris, Madrid and Neuss, Germany, the statement said.
Those detained are accused of being members of a mafia organisation and other crimes.
The suspected boss, Zhang Naizhong, was based in Rome. He used profits from illegal activities to build a massive transport company that dominated the trucking of goods for thousands of Chinese companies, police said.