1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites

Mafia Arrests

DW staff (tkw)December 18, 2007

German and Italian police have arrested four people in connection with a mafia-style shoot-out in the German city of Duisburg in August.

https://p.dw.com/p/CdC7
A dead body in a body bag is transported into a police van
The scene of the August shootingsImage: AP

Italian authorities confirmed the arrest of two men in the southern Italian town of San Luca, and German police said they have arrested a further two men in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, not far from where six Italians were gunned down in the summer.

All four stand accused of murder, trading in weapons and membership of a mafia-like criminal organization.

The Duisburg killings are thought to have been a settling of scores between two clans in the 'Ndrangheta organized crime movement which is based in Calabria, southern Italy, but which also operates in Germany.

"It's important that people realize that the 'Ndrangheta is not a local or even regional phenomenon, but a European one," Calabria's top anti-mafia official told news television station, SKYTG24.

The murdered six were all members of the Pelle-Romeo family which is engaged in a long-running bloody feud with the Strangio-Nirta clan to which the gunmen are believed to belong.

Tit-for-tat violence

Bullet holes in a windscreen
The six men were shot near Duisburg railway stationImage: AP

One of the men murdered in Duisburg was the chief suspect in the 2006 murder of Maria Strangio, wife of 29-year-old Giovanni Strangio, the suspected leader of the Strangio-Nirta clan.

Strangio, who is thought to be behind the August murders, is still at large, and the Italian authorities believe he is hiding out somewhere in Calabria.

The mobster murders in Duisburg prompted Italian and German police to seal a pact towards better coordinating their efforts in the fight against organized crime. Last week saw the creation of a joint task force to combat international syndicates operating in Germany and Italy.