Gang

Police conducted an operation against six criminal gangs in the Attica region on Monday, arresting 50 suspected members, while identifying 187 others. The gangs were involved in drug trafficking, theft and counterfeiting. According to the authorities, they had made approximately 1.4 million euros from their criminal activities. 

Security forces cracked down a total of 420 organized crime groups in 2023, with 11 operating at an international scale, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya has announced.

Police in violence-plagued Ecuador arrested 68 people Sunday who had attempted to take over a hospital in the country's southwest in the midst of a "war" between drug gangs and the security forces.

Ecuador's armed forces were engaged in a brutal standoff with organized crime Thursday, deploying more than 22,400 soldiers to put down a campaign of terror waged by gangs that has claimed 16 lives.

Walking fast, with their eyes alert and voices low, a few Ecuadorans flitted about fearfully Wednesday on city streets all but deserted amid an escalating conflict between the armed forces and violent drug gangs.

Ecuador's president gave orders Tuesday to "neutralize" criminal gangs after gunmen opened fire in a TV studio and bandits threatened random executions on a second day of terror in the violence-riddled country.

At least 10 people have been killed in a series of attacks blamed on gangs as the country exploded in what President Daniel Noboa called an "internal armed conflict".

Turkish authorities have dismantled another drug-trafficking gang, known locally as the "Scots Gang," with operations spanning three of the country's 81 provinces, primarily centered in Istanbul.

The Greek police said its officers seized a pocket knife, a hammer, a firebomb, two wooden bats and the handle of a sledgehammer from the site of a brawl between rival youth gangs in northern Athens.

Soccer-related violence is not just a police issue. It is the business of several state agencies as well as the various bodies involved in the sport in order to dismantle the gangs that operate under the cover of a club jersey. 

No new laws or proclamations are required. The problem and its roots are well known. All that is required now is political will.

The special state prosecutor's offices in Podgorica, Montenegro. Photo: EPA/BORIS PEJOVIC