MILAN - In a huge operation by the Guardia di Finanza and Police, coordinated by the DDA (District Antimafia organisation) in Milan, 18 arrests have been made in connection with an illegal waste disposal and trafficking scheme.

  Ten suspects are currently being held in jail and eight are on house arrest on charges of association with the mafia, tax fraud, illicit waste disposal, money laundering, usury and extortion. 

  The operation was led by police authorities in Milan and Lecco, and involves three regions, Lombardy, Liguria and Emilia-Romagna. 

  The criminal group is led by the mafioso Cosimo Vallelonga, a known high ranking member of the ’Ndrangheta, who was convicted of mafia association in the mid 1990s. The group were involved in an illegal disposal system of waste, including radioactive waste, as a way to launder money.

  In an intercepted telephone call to Vallelonga in 2018, one of the arrested was recording talking about “a big company” that “needed to turn over an enormous amount of money… seventy million to turn over, I don’t know if in dollars or euros, it needs to be billed.” 

  A statement released by the Milanese prosecutor Francesco Greco describes how Vallelonga ignored his previous sentences and “revitalised his mafia association.” The prosecutors, led by Alessandra Clemente, described how Vallelonga got back in touch with his old mafia contacts, as well as local business men, in meetings in which they organised extortionate loans and the reinvestment of profits from illicit economic activity.

  In the investigation into the illegal waste disposal operation, weapons were also seized, as well as preventative seizures of over 120,000 euros worth of shares in companies involved in illicit activity.

  The operation moved over 10,000 tonnes of waste, with the cooperation of several local companies. False invoices were discovered totalling up to seven million euros. In May 2018, 16 tonnes of radioactive waste was seized that had come from the province of Bergamo. 

  The group of criminals were also allegedly involved in the extortion and usury of several businesses in Lombardy, including loans of 750,000 euros and interests rates of up to 40 per cent.

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