Italy's shadowy 'Ndrangheta mafia is known for carrying out its business in Calabrian villages and Milan boardrooms, but a police investigation has revealed that mobsters have taken a keen interest in sailing

During a drugs probe leading to 30 arrests officers found that an 'Ndrangheta gang seeking a way to import cocaine turned to Bulgarian drug traffickers who used a fleet of sail boats, motor yachts and catamarans to bring in €50m (£40m) in shipments from South America. Boats fitted with false floors and crewed by Greeks, Bulgarians and Italians set off from ports in the Canaries and Balearic islands to meetings in the middle of the Atlantic where ships from Latin America would hand over hundreds of packets of drugs. "Bulgarians are better known as heroin smugglers, but they had been doing this for years," said a Carabinieri police official on condition of anonymity. The work was not without dangers. Two Italian sailors in their 60s are suspected to have sunk in a storm and have not been seen since. The probe was launched in 2005 after investigators eavesdropped on a Piedmont-based offshoot of the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta as it discussed cocaine deals with a Milan-based group of Bulgarian traffickers. The police got their first big break in 2007 when they intercepted two heavily laden vessels off the coast of Spain and Madeira. One was a small yacht packed with two tonnes of cocaine. "The other was a small cargo ship, which they had needed in order to cram in four tonnes," said the police official. Undeterred, the Bulgarians were soon chartering boats again, using small-time Italian traffickers to hire crews, but then got wind that police were once again on to them and halted operations. "We now know a Bulgarian magistrate was tipping them off," said the official. Among those arrested after a request to Bulgarian authorities is Evelin Banev, a Bulgarian businessman that the Italian police believe masterminded the trafficking. "Banev is extremely smart," said the official. "We think he was smuggling 40 tonnes of cocaine a year." Police also seized of €10m in assets in Switzerland linked to the smuggling operation. The 30 arrests, announced on Monday, were carried out in a hurry when police learned that two of the Italians suspected of hiring crews were preparing to leave for Africa, allegedly to organise the passage of cocaine-laden ships from South America to African ports. The boats setting out from Latin America from the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, said the police official. "The big Colombian cartels have now been dismantled," he said. "Now you deal with a variety of small groups, often run by survivors of the cartels."