The handshake between IS and the European mafia

The connection between mafia gangs in Europe and IS elements is increasingly revealed through the discovery of arms trafficking and fake documents.

A Belgian soldier stands guard on the road leading to Zaventem airport, after the terrorist attacks in Brussels last week. Photo: Reuters

According to the Daily Beast, before Aziz Ehsan, a 46-year-old Iraqi, was arrested near Naples, Italy, on March 22, local anti-mafia police had been monitoring the suspect for several days to find out why he appeared in the "holy land" of the Camorra mafia gang.

Ehsan was being monitored by both Belgian and French secret services for his alleged links to the Islamic State (IS) group. He is also wanted in Switzerland for a range of crimes, including forgery, assault and illegal possession of weapons.

Ehsan was clearly the type of suspect that Italian authorities believed could provide valuable clues as they tried to unravel the complex relationship between jihadists and Italian crime gangs. When the attacks in Brussels on March 22 occurred, the authorities believed it was time to “cast a net” and capture him.

Aziz Ehsan was arrested while sleeping in a car with Italian plates registered to a deceased person. He is awaiting extradition to Switzerland, France or Belgium.

Ehsan said he had come to the area near Naples to look for luxury hotels for wealthy Iraqi tourists, but police did not believe him. Ehsan had been living in his car for several days. They also pointed out that he had not brought a laptop, tablet or notebook – items typically used when scouting. His use of a prepaid, disposable mobile phone, common among Western jihadists, was another indication that he had not come to Naples to look for five-star hotels.

"We have arrested an Iraqi citizen near Naples. He was under surveillance by the French and Belgian secret services," Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said after the arrest. "He had links to terrorism."

Ehsan's presence in Italy is not believed to pose an imminent threat to anyone in the country, but is particularly notable as Europe is losing ground in the fight against IS-inspired terrorism.

Authorities want to know whether Ehsan was there to conduct any business, particularly if he was working with the Camorra to buy fake documents or illegal weapons, both of which are lucrative for the Naples gangs.

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Since the attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015, Italian anti-terrorism and anti-mafia agencies have uncovered long-standing ties between some jihadists and the Camorra in Naples. They have also uncovered links between jihadists and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, after tracking weapons smuggled from the former Yugoslavia and several African countries to Naples’ ports with relative ease.

Italian anti-mafia police have made three major arrests in the past 12 months, seizing caches of weapons, including AK-47s, semi-automatic rifles, body armor and hundreds of rounds of ammunition ready to be sold to terrorist-linked contacts. Authorities also found price tags for a range of weapons, ranging from €250 ($280) to €300 ($335), printed in Arabic, French and Italian.

“Naples has been a logistics hub for the Middle East for many years. The Camorra is also very active in the world of jihadist terrorism, which often passes through Naples,” Franco Roberti, a prominent anti-mafia prosecutor, told the Daily Beast in the wake of the Brussels attacks. “Naples has thrown itself into this kind of activity. There have been contacts between jihadists and Camorra gangs in the past.”

Location of Naples. Graphic: Britannica

Mr Roberti said anti-mafia forces had “disrupted many plots and connections” between terrorists and gangsters, but it was unclear how many they had missed.

The Camorra gang thrives on drug trafficking, illegal arms trafficking and forged documents, allowing almost anyone who wants to enter Europe to easily cross the most tightly controlled borders. And their clients are certainly not only Italians.

"We have evidence that Camorra groups were involved in an arms-for-drugs exchange with terrorists," Pierluigi Vigna, Italy's national anti-mafia prosecutor, said before his death in 2012.

The cables released by Wikileaks also suggest that the US government has long known about the links between terrorists and the mafia. In one cable, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wrote: "The relationship between Italian organized crime groups and radical Islamist groups provides potential terrorists with access to money and logistics from criminal organizations that have established smuggling routes and a presence in the United States."

Investigators believe that the movement of jihadists across Europe is one of the hardest to crack. Last summer, Salah Abdeslam, arrested two weeks ago in connection with the November attacks in France, was traveling freely through Italy, thanks to a mafia-sponsored terrorist transport network.

Italian authorities say Aziz Ehsan boarded a ferry in Bari to Greece last August, and used an Italian prepaid debit card until the Paris attacks. In both cases, law enforcement said he used fake Italian documents.

The fact that a man wanted by Europe’s most wanted man is moving freely is worrying. But the fact that weapons are being smuggled into Italy and eventually used in attacks in European capitals is equally worrying.

Michele del Prete, an Italian counterterrorism official who investigates links between organized crime groups and armed jihadists, warned that the two forces had established a partnership.

"The chaos in Naples creates favorable conditions for logistical support, arms transfers and forgery," Mr Prete said. "There are specialized groups operating in different provinces and cities that are supporting terrorism."

According to VNE