Italy breaks up Chinese crime ring, arrests 33
21 January, 2018
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 organization and other crimes.
The suspected boss, Naizhong Zhang, 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.
In one phone intercept published in a court document, Zhang recounts meeting three associates in France and telling them they could stop working with him if they wished.
“I only said two things. ‘If you go with me, you will live. If you go against me, you will die,’” he is quoted as saying.
“The next day, at midday, they all three came to me and said they wanted to join forces,” he added.
It was not immediately possible to contact the arrested men or their lawyers for comment.
Zhang won a near-monopoly in distribution across much of Europe through threats and violence against Chinese company owners, anti-mafia prosecutors said.
Thursday’s operation broke up “a dangerous organization that had used force to take control of trucking, and was financed by its illegal activities,” Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said in a statement.