The Italian Mafia organizations in Switzerland: the official threat picture

What federal authorities say

The Federal Office of Police (fedpol) has described the presence of Italian Mafia organizations in Switzerland in consistent terms for more than a decade. Its annual report for 2012 stated that suspected members of various Italian Mafia organizations lived in Switzerland, mainly in the border regions with Italy and Germany. It identified the 'Ndrangheta as the most significant threat, an organization with a clear allocation of functions and powers, internal rules and a system of sanctions. According to fedpol these groups used Switzerland for money laundering, as a place of refuge and as a logistical base, and committed offences such as cocaine trafficking, robbery, arms trafficking, economic crime and extortion.¹ In July 2020, at the time of a coordinated Swiss–Italian operation, fedpol said that at least twenty Mafia cells with about 400 members were active in Switzerland. The most affected cantons were Ticino, Valais and Graubünden, together with the large cities. Most members were described as inconspicuous persons with legitimate jobs who had lived in Switzerland for decades.²

The MROS adopted the same picture in its annual report for 2025, which contains a separate section on the Italian Mafia. All the major Italian Mafia organizations are present in Switzerland: the 'Ndrangheta from Calabria, the Camorra from Campania, Cosa Nostra from Sicily and the Sacra Corona Unita from Apulia. The 'Ndrangheta is considered to have particularly strong roots in the country. The MROS lists the sectors in which infiltration has been observed: real estate and construction, catering and food retail, waste management, energy supply, law firms and notaries, technology companies, online gambling, travel agencies, funeral services and the motor trade. It also names regional hotspots: "Regional hotspots include Ticino, the Grono area (canton of Graubünden), Valais and urban centres such as Zurich and Basel; however, nowhere in Switzerland is immune."³ Around 5 per cent of the reports received by the MROS concern criminal organizations in general, and the MROS has stepped up its cooperation with the Italian financial intelligence unit, the Unità di Informazione Finanziaria per l'Italia (UIF), and with Europol.⁴

The Frauenfeld cell and the video of Wängi

The case that brought the 'Ndrangheta in Switzerland to public attention came from Thurgau. Swiss investigators began to observe a group of Calabrians in the region of Frauenfeld in 2009. Between December 2010 and spring 2012 a hidden camera recorded meetings in a boccia club in Wängi.⁵ The group had its origins in the 1970s and in the village of Fabrizia in the province of Vibo Valentia.⁶ In August 2014 Italian police arrested the leaders of the cell in a joint operation and released the Swiss footage, which showed members taking oaths and discussing drugs and arms. The anti-Mafia prosecutor of Reggio Calabria, Nicola Gratteri, said that the investigation had proved that an offshoot of the 'Ndrangheta had been operating for decades even in Germanspeaking Switzerland.⁷

The legal sequel shows both the strengths and the limits of cross-border cooperation. On 8 March 2016 Swiss police arrested twelve persons in Thurgau and one in Zurich on the basis of Italian requests.⁸ Of the eighteen persons identified as members of the cell, nearly all were extradited to Italy and sentenced by courts in Reggio Calabria to long terms of imprisonment. One of them was acquitted in Reggio Calabria in summer 2018.⁹ A court in Reggio Calabria sentenced two Italian residents of Thurgau to twelve and fourteen years. One defence lawyer argued that the members had only met to play cards and that the oaths were a joke, and that no criminal act had been committed in Switzerland.¹⁰ One member, however, a naturalized Swiss citizen, had renounced his Italian citizenship early in the proceedings and could therefore not be extradited. The OAG conducted its own proceedings against him and dropped them in June 2019 because the available evidence was insufficient to bring charges. The State bore part of his legal costs.¹¹

The case showed the gap that the revision of Article 260ter SCC in 2021 later addressed. Under the old law a Swiss prosecutor had to prove an organization that kept its structure and membership secret and an individual act of participation or support. Membership as such, documented by an oath ceremony on video, was not enough without evidence of the organization's criminal purpose and activity in which the accused took part. In Italy, Article 416-bis c.p. punishes membership of a Mafia-type association as such, with a body of case law that treats the ritual affiliation as strong evidence of membership. The Swiss national who could not be extradited thus faced a more demanding standard of proof than his companions who were tried in Calabria.

Notes

1. Federal Office of Police (fedpol), Rapporto annuale 2012. La lotta della Confederazione contro la criminalità, June 2013, https://www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/85303.pdf. ↩
2. "In Svizzera almeno 20 cellule mafiose", RSI, 26 July 2020, https://www.rsi.ch/info/svizzera/In-Svizzera-almeno-20-cellule-mafiose--1221383.html. ↩
3. MROS, Annual Report 2025 (above), section 4.3, 30–32. ↩
4. MROS, Annual Report 2025 (above), section 4.3. ↩
5. "Thurgauer Zelle – Verfahren abgeschlossen: nur ein Mafioso kam davon", Blick, https://www.blick.ch/schweiz/thurgauer-zelle-verfahren-abgeschlossen-nur-ein-mafioso-kam-davon-id15419118.html. ↩
6. "'Ndrangheta nistet sich in der Schweiz seit Jahren ein", Nau.ch, https://www.nau.ch/news/schweiz/ndrangheta-nistet-sich-in-der-schweiz-seit-jahren-ein-65747325. ↩
7. "Jail for Swiss-based mafia cells", SWI swissinfo.ch, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/ndrangheta-branch_jail-for-swiss-based-mafia-cells/41738046; Blick (above). The Italian operation is known as "Helvetia": "La Svizzera e la mafia, un rapporto che dura da 50 anni", Ticinonline, 21 June 2018, https://www.tio.ch/ticino/focus/1251533/la-svizzera-e-la-mafia-un-rapporto-che-dura-da-50-anni. ↩
8. Nau.ch (above). ↩
9. Blick (above). ↩
10. SWI swissinfo.ch, "Jail for Swiss-based mafia cells" (above). ↩
11. Blick (above). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.