Chinese mafia crackdown: Italy arrests 13 in sweeping police operation

Italian police released footage of an operation they described on Monday (August 4) that involved the arrests of 13 individuals in a nationwide crackdown on Chinese mafia groups. The suspects are accused of selling drugs, sex trafficking, and aggravated robbery. An official said that raids were carried out in 25 provinces, including Milan, Rome, and Florence.

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Police added that the suspects have a more solid foothold in areas with a larger number of Chinese residents. Police said that the gangs' criminality is more likely to affect fellow Chinese. In April, a prominent member of China's underworld and a friend were killed by gunfire in Rome, in what police believed was one of a series of incidents in a Chinese underworld turf war in Italy.

The gangs' offenses are directed solely against other Chinese, and, similar to the classic mafias, they "use intimidation and/or violence to accomplish their objectives" and try to control the domain in which they work, the police explained. The Chinese mob organisations function "with a strongly ingrained notion of revenge, which can manifest itself as a feud", they said.

Chinese gangs use the illicit Hawala payment system to move money, and are "in constant dialogue" with other criminal groups in Italy to share territory and spheres of influence, police added. The members of the gangs are more likely to come from the same area in China and also have a bigger presence in regions of Italy with higher Chinese populations, like Tuscany, the police noted.

Prato, which is a Tuscan town renowned for its textiles and its Chinese population, also long had an issue with exploitation of labour, especially among illegal immigrants. The arrests on Monday come after independent investigations uncovered suspected worker exploitation at Italian but Chinese-owned factories in the supply chain for luxury brands Valentino, Giorgio Armani and Loro Piana.