The upcoming trial of Emanuele Gregorini in Italy offers an inside look at the growing role that brokers play in connecting drug trafficking networks in Europe and Latin America.

Italian authorities have accused Gregorini, known as “Dollarino,” of working with the Lombardo Mafia System, an alliance established by Italy’s three main mafias: the ‘Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra, and Camorra. Dollarino allegedly connected those groups with drug trafficking networks in Latin America.

Following his March 2025 arrest in Colombia, authorities extradited Dollarino to Italy on March 9, 2026. His trial, part of the so-called “Hidra,” case is set to begin on April 16, where he faces criminal association, extortion, and weapons charges. 

An investigation that started in 2023 sought to uncover the breadth of the Lombardo Mafia System’s alliances, and at least 62 members of the network have been convicted so far,. Another 45 are standing trial.

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Authorities said Dollarino arrived in Colombia in February 2025 to establish alliances with drug trafficking groups like the Costeños, as well as the Gaitanistas, also known as the Gulf Clan, Urabeños, and Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC), the country’s most powerful criminal network.

Dollarino also spent time in Panama and Brazil, two important departure points in the cocaine pipeline to Europe.

How Italian Mafias Operate in Latin America

The presence of brokers affiliated with European mafias is increasingly common across Latin America, but some of them, like Dollarino, have gone above and beyond simply representing those groups and started to involve themselves in strategic parts of the trafficking chain. 

Within the Lombardo Mafia System, Dollarino served as a broker for the Camorra, one of Europe’s oldest mafias. But in Latin America, he appeared to be much more than that. He went so far as working alongside different criminal actors in Brazil, Colombia, and Panama to coordinate shipments, trafficking routes, and shipping containers with cocaine hidden inside used to the drug to Europe.

The role of a broker is critical for these logistics, ensuring a certain degree of stability for the different actors involved and less risk for those at either end of the trafficking chain.

“Stability and minimizing risks are extremely important for any business,” said Douglas Farah, president of IBI Consultants, a consulting agency specializing in security in Latin America. “If you offer that, whether in a legitimate business or in cocaine trafficking, you’ve created a hugely profitable situation, and that’s what brokers have done.”

Brokers like Dollarino are often younger individuals who maintain a lower profile. By representing the interests of a broader network, their arrests do not directly impact the upper echelons of those organizations, making the use of these operators all the more attractive.

SEE ALSO: The Rise of Global Crime Networks: European Mafias in the Americas

And while Colombian authorities have said Dollarino played a key role in disguising drugs at the ports, those responsibilities generally don’t fall on brokers. Rather, the drug trafficking chain relies on a system that subcontracts this type of work to specialists that operate at different points, from cocaine production to using shipping containers to smuggle drugs.

In countries like Brazil, Colombia, and Panama, there are a number of criminal networks that specialize in contaminating shipping containers both inside and outside of the ports. They use different methods ranging from falsifying shipping labels to creating fake bottoms underneath legal goods underneath which drugs can be hidden.

These specialist groups also work with local corruption networks made up of port workers, customs officials, and employees of shipping companies, among others.

However, there are also large networks that help facilitate the entire trafficking system, such as Colombia’s Gaitanistas, with whom Dollarino had also established an alliance.

The Gaitanistas control coca cultivation zones and cocaine production labs in much of northern Colombia, and also guarantee international buyers access to large-scale shipments. The group relies on smaller criminal groups to facilitate transport to key departure points and storage, as well as contaminating containers before they’re shipped.