Some 109 people were detained following the dawn raids that involved Carabinieri federal police, local forces, and specialist officers from the economic crimes unit, headed by anti-mafia prosecutors from the coastal city of Catanzaro, police said in a statement.

Those arrested were members of the well-known Lanzino-Patitucci and Zingari family clans from Cosenza.

An official from Italy’s customs and financial police was also arrested during the operation.

As well as the 109 people that were detained, another 20 were placed under house arrest and 13 more were subjected to other restrictive measures.

The group are suspected of various offences including being members of the ‘Ndrangheta, “drug trafficking aggravated by mafia association”, and other offences, according to the police statement.

Vincenzo Capomolla, Catanzaro’s public prosecutor, told reporters that mafia groups were “asphyxiating” Cosenza’s shopkeepers and business people through extortion.

However, their main activity is drug trafficking, sometimes using children, he added.