Prosecutors in Germany have charged three alleged Mafia associates on suspicion of money laundering. The men are accused of using an ice cream parlor in a sleepy German town to wash cash for Italy's 'Ndrangheta', the Germany news agency reported.
Authorities in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Wednesday said they had charged three men with money laundering.
The three are alleged to have used an ice cream parlor in the small town of Siegen to legitimize criminal cash for the Italian Mafia.
The prosecutor's office in Düsseldorf accuses the men, between the ages of 25 and 39, of running the parlor under the instruction of a high-ranking member of the 'Ndrangheta group in Italy's southern Calabria region.
The mafia boss allegedly invested about €400,000 ($430,000) in the parlor.
"In return, the ice cream parlor is said to have been used to launder the illegal narcotics profits of the 'Ndrangheta and also as a logistics base in North Rhine-Westphalia," the prosecutors said.
Some ice cream business's day-to-day income was allegedly transferred to other 'Ndrangheta members in Italy.
The German prosecutors say Italian authorities consider the main mafia contact to be "a leading figure in the international cocaine trade."
The three are also accused of having been members of a foreign criminal organization since December 2016.
Membership in a foreign criminal organization is punishable by a prison sentence of six months to five years in Germany. Gang and commercial money laundering is punishable by a prison sentence of six months to ten years.
