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Article
On 30 May 2020, the Larosa clan gathered for a mangiata in lot #124 of an urban garden in Winterthur. This is a traditional “working lunch” of the Calabrian mafia, the Ndrangheta. Criminal business is discussed over roast goat meat. The managing boss from northern Italy and the clan's Swiss boss, who lives in Zurich, arrived with their entourage: the brother and son of the boss Giuseppe Larosa, known as Beppe la Mucca, who is imprisoned in Italy. According to the arrest warrant issued by Italian prosecutors, the hosts were members of the family living in Winterthur.
The Larosa clan supplied Switzerland with cocaine along the Graubünden – St.Gallen – Zurich – Aargau – Solothurn – Bern axis. Its operational centres are in Calabria and Lombardy, but increasingly also in Switzerland, with an orientation on the canton of St.Gallen. They set up shop here to conduct their drug business, benefiting from lenient penalties. In a wiretapped conversation, a gang member said that the mafiosi were doing “good” in Switzerland, unlike in Italy, where they had been “ruined”. Leaders of the clan had previously obtained residence permits through employment in the construction industry, an important gateway for criminal organisations.
In Sargans SG, a new cantonal school building is being constructed at a cost of 50 million CHF. In August 2024, the cantonal police arrested four men there from Kosovo without work permits. Two months later, illegal workers were found again on the same construction site, this time unregistered Syrians. It was not until the end of November 2025 that the now very active St.Gallen authorities arrested three workers again: a Vietnamese, a Kosovar and an Albanian. The case sounds extreme, but it is typical for the industry: construction companies subcontract work to subcontractors who often evade social security contributions and offer dumping prices.
A case in Lucerne showed how this works. In January 2025, the criminal court convicted two managers of a long-established ironworks company and a consultant for commercial fraud. The company used 27 fictitious subcontractors as conduit companies for bogus employer roles. A total of 15 straw men withdrew transferred funds and returned them in cash in exchange for a commission. Many of these straw men also appear in other dubious companies. An Italian straw man, for example, was an organ in companies owned by a questionable St.Gallen lawyer who played a role in the case of the disappeared Italian Pasquale Lamberti. The lawyer provided a Swiss shell company through which Lamberti was defrauded of millions by the Ndrangheta. In 2025, the Zurich District Court convicted this lawyer in another case for aiding and abetting fraud. He is alleged to have helped a master plasterer defraud temporary employment agencies. This plasterer is also anything but a blank slate: in 2023, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for fraud and human trafficking in Zurich.
Drug money also flows through such structures. A Lucerne travel agency served until 2024 as a hub for over seven million Swiss francs belonging to an ethnic Albanian organisation. The money was transferred to Kosovo and Albania using the hawala system. The Office of the Attorney General and the Albanian Special Prosecutor's Office are conducting criminal proceedings. A North Macedonian man is alleged to have collected drug money as a courier, issuing fictitious invoices for money laundering through his cleaning and construction company. In a wiretapped telephone conversation, he said: “I make invoices, he transfers it to me, and I give it back to him in cash. There's no interest.” The Solothurn judiciary also convicted Balkan dealers who laundered their earnings through this travel agency. The quantities were enormous: on one occasion, 256 kilograms of cocaine ordered by the Solothurn gang were seized at the port of Hamburg.
The Swiss authorities still know too little about such structures. In 2024, the then head of the Federal Office of Police (Fedpol), Nicoletta della Valle, said that knowledge about the mafia needed to be expanded and that more information needed to be exchanged between the federal government and the cantons. The latter also see an urgent need for action: Karin Kayser-Frutschi, co-president of the Conference of Cantonal Justice and Police Directors (KKJPD), spoke of laws, “that are entirely in the interests of the perpetrators.” In particular, the unsatisfactory data exchange within Switzerland makes investigations difficult. There is a shortage of personnel everywhere, including in the police force. Federal Prosecutor Stefan Blättler and, most recently, the Federal Audit Office have warned that Fedpol is short of detectives.
But politicians are slowly getting their act together. In November 2024, Justice Minister Beat Jans (SP) commissioned a “National Strategy to Combat Organised Crime”. It is being developed under Fedpol's leadership and is to be implemented from 2026. Independently of this, in September 2025 the National Council, as the first chamber, voted in favour of a motion by its Security Policy Committee calling for the creation of 100 to 200 jobs at Fedpol within ten years. Thurgau SVP National Councillor Diana Gutjahr wants general contractors and turnkey construction companies to be held liable under civil law. for example if the subcontractors they hire evade social security contributions. Her parliamentary initiative was given the green light by the National Council as the first chamber in June 2025. National Councillor Martin Candinas (Centre, GR) is tackling data exchange with his motion to combat illegal employment. Commercial register, debt collection and bankruptcy offices should also be obliged to cooperate with the cantonal control bodies. Despite opposition from the Federal Council under Economics Minister Guy Parmelin (SVP), both chambers voted in favour of the motion.
The new Fedpol chief Eva Wildi-Cortès is calling for more cooperation, personnel and instruments. She wants to be able to freeze dubious funds more easily and quickly, “to prevent their premature withdrawal.” But when it comes to controlling cash flows, local politicians often put the brakes on. This was evident in September 2025 with the Money Laundering Act. Although the provisions were tightened, loopholes remain. The SVP, FDP and Centre parties in parliament insisted that the due diligence requirements under the Money Laundering Act should only apply to properties with a sale price of CHF 5 million or more. Centre Party member of the Council of States Beat Rieder (VS), for example, warned against, “placing the entire population of Switzerland under general suspicion.” He argued that buying and selling real estate is a “respectable business”. In the same debate, Council of States member Carlo Sommaruga (SP, Geneva) warned in vain that the “heirs of the Pizza Connection” were at work and preferred to invest in real estate in Switzerland.
Conclusion: Criminal actors are deliberately exploiting Switzerland's liberal laws and federalism. Many violations are already being detected by commercial registries, social security agencies, police authorities, etc., but are not being pursued in depth due to a lack of resources. Sometimes there is also a lack of will. However, it is not enough to tighten the laws. Switzerland must be prepared to enforce them and give its authorities the necessary means to do so. And politicians must finally take a clear stance. Only then will there be a chance of getting the criminal scene under control, at least to the extent that it does not spread further.
Henry Habegger is a journalist and long-standing Federal Parliament editor. He writes about politics, but also regularly about organised crime. One example is the multi-part series Der grosse Clan-Report (The Big Clan Report) for CH Media newspapers.