Today, officers from the Central I.C.O. Service and the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Catanzaro executed an order issued by the G.I.P. of the Court of Catanzaro, at the request of the local Public Prosecutor's Office, ordering the pre-trial detention in prison of 9 individuals, accused in various capacities of having promoted, directed, financed, organized, and carried out an intense international drug trafficking operation from South America. At the same time, the G.I.P. also ordered the preventive seizure, including equivalent value, of the proceeds of the alleged crimes, amounting to over 47 million euros, as well as specific buildings and land whose purchase could not be justified by the declared income of the associates, for a total value of about 600,000 euros. The criminal investigations, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office – D.D.A. Catanzaro and carried out by the local Economic and Financial Police Unit – Organized Crime Investigation Group (G.I.C.O.) Catanzaro, made it possible to outline—in the preliminary investigation phase, which requires subsequent verification in court in contradiction with the defense—the operations of a criminal organization dedicated to drug trafficking, of 'ndrangheta origin as it served the interests of the GALLACE clan of Guardavalle, with its headquarters in the aforementioned municipality in the province of Catanzaro, the clan's stronghold, and with contacts and logistical bases in various locations in Italy (Lazio, Tuscany, Sardinia, and Lombardy) and abroad. In particular, serious evidence was gathered regarding the organization's involvement in multiple imports of cocaine-type narcotics from South America, mainly from Peru, Colombia, and Brazil, countries where some associates resided permanently and handled the procurement of the drugs and the logistical operations of hiding them inside containers (the so-called "rip-off" technique) loaded onto cargo ships bound for ports in Northern Europe (mainly Rotterdam, Hamburg, and Antwerp) and in Italy (Gioia Tauro, Livorno, Civitavecchia, Genoa, and Trieste), where members of the association were also able to organize teams to extract the drugs from the port area. Further, serious evidence was gathered regarding cocaine imports via air carrier at the Frankfurt airport and the shipment, via courier, of liquid cocaine hidden inside moringa juice or concealed by soaking cardboard boxes containing fruit from Colombia with the drug. Moreover, the organization allegedly marketed large quantities of hashish destined for the markets of Rome, Grosseto, and Milan, as well as specific chemical additives capable of converting legal hemp into narcotic and psychotropic substances, and set up numerous marijuana plantations in Tuscany, Lazio, and Calabria. This investigative theory was initially supported by the analysis of encrypted chats (in which the associates carefully planned activities by creating "group chats" involving all those participating in each illegal operation), which led to the identification of most members of the group in question, in which a Calabrian broker, considered "one of the biggest contacts in Calabria," based in Germany, played a central role. All illegal operations were allegedly directed and coordinated by a top member of the GALLACE clan, a leading figure in the 'ndrangheta. In this way, for the period May 2020–March 2021, imports of over 1 ton of cocaine and more than 200 kg of hashish were reconstructed, and 17 seizures (for over 400 kg of cocaine) carried out in Italy and abroad were attributed to the organization. Subsequently, through traditional investigative activities, the current operations of the organization were outlined, and after months of collaboration with the D.E.A. and the Security Expert of the D.C.S.A. based in Lima (Peru), on September 19, 2022, a container (from Peru) containing coffee, which arrived at the port of Trieste, was inspected, inside which about 100 kg of cocaine were found and seized. The proceedings are currently in the preliminary investigation phase.