Overview
- EUROPOL coordinated simultaneous searches that investigators carried out Wednesday across Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland and those actions produced six arrests and searches of 14 homes and businesses.
- Five of the six arrested suspects are now in pre-trial detention while one was released under conditions, reflecting differing judicial decisions across jurisdictions.
- Authorities seized counterfeit euro notes, narcotics, weapons, mobile phones, data carriers and valuables that prosecutors say were bought with criminal proceeds.
- Investigators say the probe began after a November 2021 arrest of a 47-year-old linked to the Naples-based Camorra who was extradited to Italy and freed in 2022 and who allegedly arranged repeated smuggling trips of fake notes that were temporarily stored in a jewelry shop in Rems-Murr-Kreis.
- Prosecutors and police expect the seized phones and data carriers to be key to tracing money flows and links between suspects, and the operation highlights growing reliance on multilateral cooperation to dismantle transnational organized-crime networks.