Italian authorities say they have dismantled a criminal ring exploiting migrant farm workers in the area of Gioia Tauro, in the southern region of Calabria. The migrants were forced to work for up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and were paid between two and three euros per hour, investigators said.
An Italian court has convicted 6 men from Nigeria in the gang rape case at Bari migrant center in southern Italy. The prison terms range between 5 and 9 years for gang-raping a 25-year-old.
Italian authorities busted two Nigerian mafia groups operating in Italy and abroad to traffic migrants. Investigators said that the groups forced women into sex work.
Italy's national anti-mafia and anti-terrorism prosecutor Federico Cafiero de Raho has said that African criminal organizations are dangerous and are controling migration from Libya to Europe. He claimed that while the Nigerian mafia is currently the strongest, various organizations work together in a sort of consortium.
In the birthplace of the mafia, its tentacles have moved beyond drug dealing and white collar crime to taking control of Italy's farmland and its workers. Megan Williams travelled to one area south of Rome where a community of Sikh agricultural workers, long exploited and even enslaved by criminal groups, and an Italian activist, are fighting back.
Palermo Mayor Leoluca Orlando said the Sicilian capital is no longer the capital of the mafia and it now seeks to be known as the capital for migrant rights and welcoming. In recent weeks, Orlando has led a revolt of Italian mayors against the Salvini security decree.
The Italian authorities have arrested 15 individuals on charges of terrorism and aiding and abetting clandestine immigration to Italy. They allegedly belong to a criminal organization that offered journeys on fast dinghies from Tunisia to Sicily for 2,500 euros.
Some 15,000 people are involved in the practice of subjecting migrants to exploitation with 'gang masters' in Italy. The individuals are part of a hierarchy that goes from drivers up to the bosses and are linked to organized crime groups specializing in human trafficking.
Eleven shop owners who bravely took on their racketeers show that the southern Italian city's multiculturalism has had an impact on breaking down the traditional mafia methods. Ylenia Gostoli reports from Palermo.
The Italian authorities have asked for 108 people implicated in the probe into alleged mafia infiltration in the management of a migrant reception centre in the province of Crotone in Calabria will be sent to trial.
Real estate confiscated from Mafia will be used for migrant integration in the central Italian province Caserta. 22 million euros will be invested into the project by the municipality, the interior ministry and the regional government.
The mafia is using light, inflatable, Chinese-made plastic boats to traffic people, and hashish, between Morocco and Spain. The ability to smuggle more people, more quickly is putting pressure on the Spanish authorities.