Italian police have disbanded an international drug-smuggling gang in an investigation involving police from other European and South American countries. Fourteen Dutch drugs couriers were arrested.

Police kept track of the smugglers at Rome airport. The couriers used a fixed route via Rome to smuggle the cocaine from Surinam to Belgium and the Netherlands. The arrests took place over a seven-month period, the last one in July. In total, 55 kilograms of cocaine - originally from Argentina - were seized, with a street value of some 20 millions euros.