Hundreds of police raided a small town in southern Italy on Thursday, burrowing through a secret tunnel and searching homes as they arrested more than 30 suspected members of organized crime clans believed to be involved in a feud that claimed the lives of six Italians in Germany earlier this month.
Most of the arrests took place in San Luca, the town in Calabria where the two rival clans of the 'ndrangheta, the local version of the Sicilian Mafia, are based.
Three suspects were found hiding in an underground bunker under a building in the center of town, officials said.
PHOTO: AP
Sky TG24 TV showed footage of a police officer crawling through an opening in a wall, apparently part of a hideaway, and stepping into what appeared to be a wine cellar with many glass jugs and bottles. Suspects in handcuffs, including several women, are seen being led away by police.
"The women are the engine of the feud," Calabria anti-Mafia prosecutor Nicola Gratteri said on state TV. "They are the ones who can accelerate the feuds or not."
Gratteri said that Thursday's raids "might slow down the feud."
The massive operation, which involved some 300 police forces, did not target the killers directly involved in the slayings in Germany. But it put a total of 32 suspects behind the bars, possibly averting the risk of further violence, said Renato Cortese, a top police official in the regional capital of Reggio Calabria.
"Presumably, there was going to be a reaction, given that these two clans hate each other so much," Cortese said.
About a dozen suspects were still on the run with a total of 44 people sought in arrest warrants issued by Italian authorities as part of an investigation that started long before the Aug. 15 slayings.
German and Italian authorities were conducting a separate investigation to find the killers of the six men, aged 16 to 38, killed in Duisburg, police said in a statement.
According to Italian reports, among those apprehended were the brothers of two of the victims in Germany, as well top bosses of both clans. While most suspects were in San Luca, some were arrested in a town near Rome.
Charges included Mafia association, murder and arms trafficking, authorities said.
The shooting after a gathering at an Italian restaurant in downtown Duisburg was seen as a family vendetta and the latest chapter of the long-standing feud between the San Luca clans.
Police in Duisburg, Germany, said the gathering at the restaurant Da Bruno was more likely an initiation ritual into the 'ndrangheta for one of the victims rather than an 18th birthday celebration as originally reported.
They said in a statement they found a small religious picture of St. Gabriel, with his face burned away -- a sign that the gathering was likely an initiation ritual. But Italian police said they believed the saint was Michael the Archangel, considered the patron saint of police in Italy.
Uwe Weidemann, a spokesman for Duisburg police, said searches on Aug. 24 found signs that apartments had been hastily abandoned.
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