20 people have been arrested on charges of cocaine trafficking by the Italian police. Seven of those arrested are of Albanian nationality, one is of Dominican nationality, two of Colombian nationality, Italian media reports.

Police tracked them down because the group used an encrypted communications system called EncroChat and information leaked from SkyEcc devices.

Six of the arrested suspects are accused of being members of the group that operated since 2014 in Genoa, Panama; Colombia and Venezuela, which aimed to import cocaine from Latin America to the port of Genoa and then resell it to third parties.

The group was led by Gabriele Puleo. He had a network of contacts with drug trafficking organizations in South America.

Even after his arrest, which took place on 7.10.2015 after the seizure of 147,970 kg of cocaine, in collaboration with fugitive Belloço Giuseppe Puelo, he communicated with other collaborators, among them Marco Cuoco, Vincenzo Puleo by means of self-made encrypted communication systems, continuing to organize and finance the importation of new shipments of cocaine from Colombia and the Dominican Republic, and destined for Italy, via the port of Genoa, the airport of Paris, the airport of Amsterdam.

Payment for the narcotics was made by a method that consisted of handing over cash to a middleman in Italy, who took care of delivery to the supplier, handing over invoices to the buyers.

The suspects are accused of nine episodes of importing cocaine from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Panama, for a total of about 670 kg and a commercial value of 25 million euros.