onlineredaktion - In April 2009, Carabinieri officers presented the results of "Operation Viola" conducted in cooperation with the Dutch police and Nigerian, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Colombian authorities.

It resulted in 49 arrests and continuing investigations of 13 other individuals on charges of trafficking in drugs and human beings. The investigation, launched in 2007, revealed the existence of a well-structured organization based in Castel Volturno, a town in the Campania region, which smuggled hundreds of Nigerian women through Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Togo to Holland.

Victims were obliged to request asylum and then to move to Italy, France, and Spain, where they were put under control of "mamans" and forced into prostitution. The criminals also traded in Cocaine and Heroin produced in Turkey and Colombia, and
obliged the girls to act as drug traffickers and dealers.