ドライブスルー方式でコカイン密売、犯罪組織を摘発　伊

【ローマＡＦＰ＝時事】イタリア警察は８日、ドライブスルー方式でコカインを密売していた犯罪組織を摘発したと発表した。摘発には汚職警官３人が協力したとされる。（写真は資料写真）
　警察は、「（購入者は）主に車でやって来て、車から降りることなく、花売りに扮（ふん）した密売人に近づいて代金を支払い、必要な量の薬物を受け取っていた」と説明した。
　「クレオパトラ作戦」と銘打たれた捜査で、２２人が捜査対象となり、その半数が逮捕・勾留され、６人は在宅のまま捜査を受けている。
　組織の構成員は主にエジプト人で、「クレオパトラ」というカフェで会っていた。同組織はローマの北にある同国最大のフラミニオ墓地近くに花売りの屋台を出し、近くの植木鉢や花壇、茂みに違法薬物を隠していた。
　夜になると近隣の駅に場所を移し、精肉店で違法薬物を密売していた。捜査関係者によると、１日の売り上げは、多い時で２万ユーロ（約２７０万円）に上ったという。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/06/10-11:54）

Italian police have broken up a drug gang that offered a drive-through service for cocaine just outside Rome's main cemetery, an operation that allegedly ran with the help of three corrupt cops.
Customers... mostly by car and without even getting out, used to approach subjects posing as flower sellers, pay what was due and receive the quantity of drugs required, police said in a statement Tuesday.
Twenty-two people were investigated as part of Operation Cleopatra following investigations by anti-mafia prosecutors.
Half were placed in pre-trial detention and another six put under house arrest.
It was not clear if the police officers, accused of being on the dealers' payroll, were among those arrested.
The suspects are accused of offences including criminal association aimed at drug trafficking, drug dealing, illegal possession of firearms, aggravated theft, corruption and breach of police records.
Dealers -- mostly Egyptians who met in a cafe called Cleopatra -- hid drugs in flower pots, in a flowerbed, or in bushes near their stall by the Flaminio cemetery north of the Italian capital, police said.
At night, they would move their business to a nearby train station, and also dealt drugs from a butcher's store. According to investigators, the group made as much as 20,000 euros ($24,000) a day from their trade.
The Flaminio cemetery, Italy's largest, made the news in April following complaints it was failing to process hundreds of bodies.
According to funeral homes operators who staged a public protest, the backlog was due to a coronavirus-related surge in deaths, which exacerbated a pre-existing problem with insufficient cemetery capacity.