International anti-mafia stings may have increased in recent months, but Italian organised crime groups constitute a social and economic "cancer" that the world seems to underestimate, experts say.
The most high-profile recent operation saw 90 mobsters from the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia arrested in December in six different countries, in raids involving hundreds of police officers.
While the notorious Sicilian Cosa Nostra is well known to be present in Australia, Canada and the United States, other Italian mafias have been globalising too -- with Europe Union countries among their top destinations.
The three main groups -- Cosa Nostra, the Neapolitan Camorra and the 'Ndrangheta -- are "among the most threatening in Europe" because of the global reach of their criminal operations, according to Europol.
Their power lies in their control and exploitation of territory and community, including installing allies in administrative positions even in places far from the territories they control, the European police agency said.
Italian mafia-hunting expert Cristiano Tomassi cited cases of entire neighbourhoods in European cities which are under the control of organised crime groups, and are having the life strangled out of them.
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"Why does it seem like nothing's going on in those areas? Because the mafia is in control, but it is not a healthy control, it is like a cancer that progresses. And where there is a cancer there is no more life," Tomassi told AFP.
"Petty crime no longer exists, but neither does the healthy economy. It's true that weeds no longer grow, but grass doesn't grow either," said Tomassi, a police colonel and organised crime analyst with anti-mafia investigative authority DIA.
The powerful Italian mafias make their money in large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering, as well as currency and goods counterfeiting, and the trafficking of toxic waste.
They wreak heavy damage on local and national economies, according to the latest DIA report: They "pollute financial and credit channels, disrupt competition and the markets (and) promote black market activities and tax evasion."