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Italian authorities have cracked down on two important organized crime schemes, uncovering a sophisticated money laundering network where over 18 million euros of drug trafficking proceeds were transformed into gold bars to hide their origins.
The operation, according to Italian media , conducted in Italy and Kosovo, led to the seizure of assets worth over 2 million euros and highlighted links to international drug trafficking.
The investigation, also supported by Eurojust and Europol, is linked to a previous operation carried out in September 2025, which already seized assets, financial resources and other assets worth over 30 million euros, attributed to a transnational criminal syndicate dedicated to laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking committed in France.
The asset seizure in Kosovo stems from asset controls carried out by the Guardia di Finanza (Fiamme Gialle), which reconstructed the availability of current accounts, commercial activities, real estate and luxury cars held abroad by a couple of Kosovar citizens residing in the province of Alessandria, already investigated in Italy for money laundering and arrested last September in France, because they were found in possession of over 50 kg of high-quality gold bars, hidden in a false bottom of a car.
In particular, the investigative activities have made it possible to determine how drug money collected in France, valued at no less than 18 million euros during the 10 months under investigation, once concentrated in the home of the couple living in the province of Alessandria, was transformed into gold bars and sheets of corresponding value with the collaboration of individuals operating in the sector of smelting and transformation of precious metals located between Lombardy and Piedmont.
The investigations have allowed us to reconstruct the modus operandi used by the suspects, who, after securing the money, the proceeds from international drug trafficking, proceeded to transform them into gold bars, in order to prevent their illegal origin and identification, as well as to facilitate their subsequent concealment and transport abroad to Kosovo, Turkey and Morocco.
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