Spanish police arrest Camorra-linked gang leader on suspicion of drug trafficking

Spain's national police arrested on Thursday the alleged leader of one of the branches of Camorra — a powerful Naples-based Italian criminal organisation — in the city of Girona in the northern Catalonia region.

The man, who has not been named, was subject to three European arrest warrants for membership of a criminal organisation and drug trafficking "on a large scale".

The arrested man is said to be the leader of the Orlando-Polverino-Nuvoletta clan, which has links to the criminal organisation Camorra and which largely operates in the southern Italian region of Marano.

The investigation in Spain dates back to February, when authorities learned that the accused, who had been on the run since August 2024, could be in Spain "carrying out his activities related to the trafficking of narcotic substances," a police statement said.

According to police, "the fugitive" used various means to avoid being located by law enforcement, including "the use of various mobile devices with telephone lines in Lithuania and the United Kingdom (and) false documentation for him and his partner."

The suspect also rented holiday homes in different parts of Barcelona and Girona, "where he only spent a few days and then immediately changed his place of residence."

The investigation found that the man had built up a "network of contacts" in Barcelona, where family and friends "were in charge of maintaining the logistics of transport and distribution of the drugs, as well as vehicles and homes."

Authorities deployed a range of surveillance devices, with "lines of investigation focused mainly on the fugitive's close environment."

The agents surveilled one of the homes where he used to hide in a residential area in Girona, eventually leading them to positively identify the fugitive as he was departing the property in a car.

In 2018, Spanish police arrested Antonio Orlando, one of the heads of the criminal gang made up of the three most powerful clans in Naples, who had managed to evade justice for 15 years, despite being considered one of the most dangerous criminals in Italy.

By then, the clan had already suffered numerous arrests, many of which happened in Spain, as they were involved in laundering millions of euros from drug trafficking in the Canary Islands.

Italy's then-Interior Minister Matteo Salvini celebrated his arrest by assuring that "the good life is over" for the suspect.

Italy has many mafia groups, the most prominent over the decades being Sicily’s Cosa Nostra. However, the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta and the Camorra are the more powerful groups today.

Italian criminal organisations are heavily invested in drug trafficking, disposal of waste, construction and many other trades and services.

In 2023, they generated an estimated profit of €40 billion, equivalent to 2% of the Italian GDP, according to a study by CGIA (Italian Association of Artisans).