Italian authorities sounded the alarm about a shift in alliances between international criminal organizations. Their most recent information points to the Calabrian Ndrangheta teaming up with Mexico’s Cartel Jalisco New Generation.
The news of the relationship comes as part of a series of reports from the Antimafia Investigation Directorate (DIA) that revealed how the Mexican criminal organization helps supply the Italian mobsters with shipping containers full of cocaine. According to Mexico’s Proceso, the Italian crime syndicate controls most of the cocaine trafficking in Asia, Africa, and Europe.
The alliance with CJNG is new as, in prior decades, the Ndrangheta had business partnerships with the Sinaloa Cartel and the Gulf Cartel. In their report, Proceso noted that the first alliances between the Calabrian mafia and Mexican cartels began in 2008. Operation Solare, which took place in the USA, Guatemala, and Italy, led to the arrest of 200 people and uncovered the ties between the Gulf Cartel and the Schirripa clan of the Ndrangheta.
In 2011, Operation Solare II revealed how the emerging Zetas cartel began working with various families of the Ndrangheta. In 2020, multiple operations uncovered ties between the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Sinaloa Cartel, Proceso reported.
The new information from the DIA does not show a presence from either of the other cartels — not even the Sinaloa Cartel. The only Mexican current crime syndicate is Cartel Jalisco New Generation.
As Breitbart Texas reported, CJNG made a name for itself in Mexico as one of the most violent and sadistic criminal organizations. In Europe they are simply connected to the drug trade but in Mexico CJNG is the main drug cartel behind the use of improvised explosive devices, car bombs, and even innovated the use of drones to drop IEDs on their enemies.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. This article was written by “E.F. Robles” from Jalisco.