U.S.-Italian Enforcement Cooperation Breaks Italian Organized Crime Syndicate

On February 11, 2014, Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and George Venizelos, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), announced the unsealing of a fifteen-count indictment in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of New York, charging seven defendants with narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and firearms offenses.  They were charged for their participation in a transnational heroin and cocaine trafficking conspiracy involving the ‘Ndrangheta, one of Italy’s most powerful organized syndicates.