In one of Italy’s most significant criminal trials in recent years, a court in Milan has sentenced 62 members of organized crime to prison terms totaling nearly 500 years. The case, known as Operation “Hydra,” targeted a coordinated alliance involving the country’s three most powerful mafia organizations: Cosa Nostra, ’Ndrangheta, and Camorra. The verdicts were delivered late Monday evening in a high-security courtroom inside Milan’s Opera prison.
The trial began in May 2025 and was built on months of investigative work, including surveillance operations, intercepted communications, and detailed financial analysis. Individual sentences reached up to 16 years in prison. Prosecutors argued that the criminal groups operated jointly in Lombardy, one of Italy’s most economically important regions.
The alliance allegedly managed a wide range of illegal activities, including drug trafficking, extortion, money laundering, and other financial crimes, through a shared operational network. According to investigators, the cooperation between the three organizations went far beyond occasional collaboration. Authorities described the structure as a systematic and stable criminal arrangement, referring to it as a “Lombard mafia system” that blurred traditional territorial boundaries between the groups.
A central element of the case was evidence obtained from intercepted meetings and agreements between members of the different organizations, which prosecutors said demonstrated coordinated decision-making and long-term strategic planning. The Hydra case is not yet fully concluded. An additional 45 defendants are expected to face separate trials in the future, a process that could further expand the scope of the investigation and result in additional convictions.
Notably, in an earlier phase of the case in 2023, several arrest warrants had initially been rejected by lower courts. Those decisions were later overturned by Italy’s Supreme Court, allowing the arrests to proceed and paving the way for the main trial. Italian authorities view the outcome of Operation Hydra as a major milestone in the fight against organized crime, underscoring the judiciary’s ability to dismantle complex mafia alliances operating at the heart of the country’s economic system.
