Police in Italy and Germany on Monday held 17 suspected members of a criminal gang that allegedly carried out armed robberies of armoured vehicles transporting cash to and from banks.
Two other suspects were required to report regularly to police.
The Italian arrests were made in provinces of Salerno and Naples in southern Italy's Campania region, in the province of Foggia in Italy's southern Puglia region, and in the province of Verona in the northeast Veneto region, police said.
In Germany, suspects were arrested in the southwest state of Rhineland-Palatinate, according to police.
The suspected gang members are from the Salerno and Naples area in the Campania region and from Albania, police said.
The alleged gang is accused of using weapons including Kalashnikov rifles in five armed robberies in several Campania provinces and in the province of Foggia, police said.
Monday's operation followed a probe that began in February after a heist in Fisciano in the province of Salerno, said police.
Five days ago, police in Italy and Germany arrested 37 Sicilian mafia suspects in an operation against its Rinzivillo clan, seizing over 11 million euros of assets in the sting.
Thirty-five suspects were arrested across Italy in the 4 October operation - in Sicily, in the central Lazio region, and in the northern Lombardy, Piedmont and Emilia Romagna regions, according to police.
The other two arrests were made in unspecified locations in Germany.
The operation came after a complex probe in which investigators uncovered the Rinzivillos' operations in Rome, northern Italy and in Germany, where the clan was building a drug trafficking racket and was in contact with a notorious Calabrian mafia fugitive, Antonio Strangio, police said.
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