Italian police capture €240 mil. in cocaine; Some suspects in the Netherlands

Italian police said they dealt a major blow to the Colombian drug cartel Clan del Golfo after an investigation which lasted over a year. Police seized 4,300 kilograms of cocaine and almost 1.9 million euros in cash and cars.

The cocaine had an estimated street value of 240 million euros. Justice officials in the northeastern Italian city of Trieste issued arrest warrants against people in Italy, the Netherlands, and elsewhere.

This concerns a total of 38 warrants naming suspects in six countries, specifically Colombia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia, in addition to Italy and the Netherlands. The investigation into a network of the Colombian cartel was carried out in collaboration with Colombian and American investigative services.

During the investigation, agents infiltrated the network. Since May last year, 19 drug shipments from Colombia were tracked from the supplier to the people who buy and trade the drugs in Italy.

The leader of Clan del Golfo, Dairo Antonio Úsuga David, was arrested in Colombia in 2021. He was extradited to the United States last month.