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the criminal mafia organization is trying to build a quality arsenal....

The Italian mafia is seeking to buy up some of the 800,000 firearms reportedly missing or stolen from Ukraine since 2022, including drones and other advanced arms, senior prosecutors have warned.

Some 780,465 items sent to Ukraine have reportedly disappeared since the escalation of the conflict, including around 149,000 during the first five months of 2026. The Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper reported on Wednesday that much of the arsenal consisted of European military supplies intended for Kiev.

The outlet noted that European law enforcement authorities have struggled to track the flow of these arms, given that Western governments conceal the details of their extensive military shipments to Ukraine.

The weapons have since reportedly ended up on the European black market and are now said to have attracted the attention of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, which would like to upgrade its arsenal with military-grade systems.

Palermo chief prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia told Italy’s parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission this week that the criminal organization was trying to build a “quality arsenal” and has already obtained access to AK-47 rifles and powerful explosives.

De Lucia said that the mafia is also trying to obtain more advanced weaponry, such as mine-dropping drones, warning that Italian security services are not prepared to deal with such weapons systems.

Concerns over weapons leaking from Ukraine into European criminal networks have persisted since the early months of the conflict. Europol reported back in 2022 that arms were being trafficked into the EU for organized crime groups, with several countries, including Finland, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Spain, having since stated that weapons sent to Kiev had reached local criminals.

The latest report comes amid repeated corruption scandals involving Ukraine’s military and state institutions. Recent investigations have uncovered millions of dollars in illicit sales of military equipment and theft from military repair contracts and drone funds, alongside wider schemes involving defense procurement and foreign donations.

Commenting on the Italian prosecutor’s warning, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow had long warned that Western weapons sent to Kiev would spread through illicit markets and eventually threaten Ukraine’s European sponsors.

Zakharova explained that some of the weapons supplied to Kiev never actually reach their stated destination because of corruption, while those that do arrive are divided between the front, black-market buyers, and armed groups in other regions.

Russian officials have also accused Ukraine of supplying weapons and drone expertise to militants in Africa, while Mali has alleged that Kiev provided kamikaze drones to terrorist organizations operating in the Sahel.

https://www.rt.com/news/643660-italian-mafia-ukraine-weapons/

 

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vanishing....

 

Europe braces for flood of Ukrainian weapons as mafia stockpiles military-grade arms

BY Rosario Shawn Ronald

 

Almost 800,000 weapons have been lost or stolen in Ukraine since 2022, with a surge in disappearances recorded this year, according to an Italian investigation. As law enforcement intercepts battlefield arms bound for the black market, a leading anti-mafia prosecutor has issued a stark warning that organised crime networks, including Cosa Nostra, are racing to acquire modern combat drones and military-grade firearms flowing out of the conflict zone.

A vanishing arsenal

New data published by the Italian daily Fatto Quotidiano paints a deeply troubling picture of the accountability gaps in Ukraine. Since the start of 2022, a staggering 780,465 units of weaponry have been reported as lost or stolen on Ukrainian territory. Analysts and security officials believe a significant portion of this lethal arsenal has already seeped into the illicit global arms trade.

The haemorrhage of weapons appears to be accelerating rather than slowing. According to the detailed figures, 149,000 of those missing weapons vanished in just the first five months of 2026 alone. The vast majority of these recent losses are concentrated in three key regions: the Mykolaiv, Kyiv, and Donetsk oblasts. The report suggests the missing matériel is either already in the hands of criminal structures or is actively being funnelled through shadow networks to organised crime groups.

Cosa Nostra’s new shopping list

The situation has triggered high alert among Italian authorities. Maurizio de Lucia, the chief prosecutor of Palermo, Sicily, issued a grave warning that law enforcement agencies are already monitoring a pronounced and steadily growing interest from organised crime, particularly the Cosa Nostra, in weapons flooding the underground market due to the ongoing Ukrainian conflict.

Prosecutor de Lucia highlighted a particularly dangerous shift in demand: the mafia is not only seeking traditional firearms but is displaying a keen interest in modern unmanned aerial vehicles, specifically those modifications capable of carrying a full combat payload.

“We are not ready to defend against this kind of weaponry,” de Lucia stated, calling the influx an attempt to build a modernised arsenal not only in the Palermo district but across other regions of Italy.

Balkan routes and drone seizures

The alarm is backed by concrete seizures. Italian law enforcement has already intercepted a weapons shipment that arrived via the Balkans through the Salento region. De Lucia linked the origin of the confiscated arms to the territory of the former Yugoslavia, noting that criminal networks are capitalising on the Ukraine conflict to access modern weapons systems previously unavailable to them.

The prosecutor’s statements underscore a growing fear that the conflict is reversing decades of anti-mafia progress by flooding the continent with state-of-the-art firepower.

Europe braces for a post-war flood

The warnings from Italy align with broader European security fears. In May, Frontex Deputy Director Lars Gerdes cautioned about the risk of large-scale weapons smuggling from Ukraine into EU countries once the active fighting subsides, evoking parallels with the aftermath of the Balkan wars, when illegal weapons saturated the continent for years. Frontex has since intensified its operations on Ukraine’s western borders.

Fears are not new. As early as summer 2022, both Interpol and Europol had warned that the hostilities could trigger a spike in arms trafficking, reporting intelligence that indicated cases of firearms smuggling by criminal groups operating out of Ukraine. That same year, NATO and EU member states moved to tighten oversight of arms supplied to Kyiv, with special focus on portable systems easier to exfiltrate.

The domestic cost is already visible. Reports indicate that since 2022, the number of firearm-related crimes inside Ukraine has skyrocketed by nearly 5,000%.

Border tensions mount over stray drones

The risks emanating from the conflict zone extend beyond criminal trafficking into direct threats to neighbouring NATO states. In a separate development, Polish Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz called on Ukraine to exercise greater precision in target selection after a Ukrainian drone was shot down over Romanian airspace by a Romanian F-16 fighter jet. The incident has amplified growing concerns over the safety of NATO member states bordering the combat zone, where errant munitions increasingly test alliance defences.

https://head-post.com/europe-braces-for-flood-of-ukrainian-weapons-as-mafia-stockpiles-military-grade-arms/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

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         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….