By Alvise Armellini
ROME (Reuters) -Italian police arrested 13 people following a nationwide sweep against Chinese mafia groups, on charges including involvement in crimes such as drug dealing, sex trafficking and aggravated robbery, they said on Monday.
Raids were conducted in 25 provinces, including Milan, Rome, Florence, Prato and Catania, anti-organised crime police official Andrea Olivadese said.
Police reported a further 31 people to judicial authorities without arresting them, and seized 550 grams (1.2 pounds) or around 5,500 doses of “shabu” crystal methamphetamines, and checked hundreds of shops and vehicles.
The gangs’ crimes tend to exclusively target fellow Chinese, and, like traditional mafias, they “resort to intimidation and/or violence to achieve their goals” and seek to dominate the territory where they operate, police said.
The Chinese mob groups operate “with a deeply rooted concept of revenge that can take the form of a feud,” they added.
In April, a senior figure in the Chinese underworld and a companion were shot dead in Rome, in what police suspected was part of a turf war within Chinese criminal networks in Italy.
Chinese gangs use the informal Hawala payment system to transfer money, and are “in constant dialogue” with other criminal organisations in Italy to share business and zones of influence, police said.
The gang members tend to hail from the same region in China and have a stronger foothold in parts of Italy with more Chinese residents, such as Tuscany, police noted.
Prato, a Tuscan city famous for its textile industry and its large Chinese community, has a long-running problem with labour exploitation, particularly among undocumented immigrants.
The arrests announced on Monday follow separate investigations exposing alleged worker abuse among Italian but Chinese-owned workshops in the supply chain of luxury brands such as Valentino, Giorgio Armani and Loro Piana.
(Reporting by Alvise Armellini; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
