20 MILLION SEIZED FROM 'NDRANGHETA AFTER SUMMER DRUG BUST

20 MILLION SEIZED FROM 'NDRANGHETA AFTER SUMMER DRUG BUST

(ANSA) - Reggio Calabria, October 29 - Italian police on Thursday seized 20 million euros in assets thought to belong to the 'Ndrangheta mafia in Calabria.

Private clinics, beauty salons, fast cars and motorcycles were among property confiscated from mobsters arrested last summer in a major drugs bust.

The operation in July netted over 49 people, 13 of them foreigners, involved with international trafficking for the 'Ndrangheta.

Members of some five different clans were arrested in addition to members of the Naples Camorra crime syndicate.

Police said the operation, possible thanks to the collaboration of police from South America and the Balkans, proved the 'Ndrangheta's preeminent role in the European drug trade.

Immediately following the arrests, prosecutor Nicola Gratteri said investigators got to work ''tracking down the suspects' hidden assets''.

After months of painstaking work, Gratteri said police confiscated property across Italy from the southern region of Calabria to the northwestern region of Piedmont, in addition to Lazio, the region around Rome.

Regarded by some as the strongest and most impenetrable of Italy's mafias, the 'Ndrangheta's power base mainly derives from its domination of the European cocaine market.

The Calabrian mob also controls the waste disposal racket, which is currently the subject of an investigation into ships allegedly sunk off the coast of southern Italy laden with toxic waste.