German Gov't Registers Quadrupling of Italian Mafia Numbers Since 2008

The headcount of organized crime groups of Italian descent in Germany has quadrupled over the past nine years, local media reported Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – German security authorities registered 562 members of Italian organized crime (IOC) in June 2017 compared to just 136 in 2008, the Spiegel magazine reported, citing the Federal Government's response to a question from the Greens party faction in Bundestag.

Among the separate gangs, Sicilian Cosa Nostra saw the largest growth with a 520-percent increase to today's 124 members. The Calabrian 'Nrdangheta is the most powerful mafia group in Germany today with 333 members, representing a 455-percent increase compared with 2008.

The German offshoots of the Camorra from Naples and Calabria now has 87 members, and the Apulian Mafia has 18 members in Germany.

The figures only describe the structures that authorities like the Federal Criminal Police Office were able to discover, while the actual number could be much larger.

The response to the Greens also shows that the country's federal and regional law enforcement agencies had launched 102 investigations against Italian mafia members over the past 10 years.