Besides its usual trade in drugs, weapons and prostitution, ’Ndrangheta, Italy’s largest Mafia group, has branched out into flowers and even chocolates.

Some 54 suspects were arrested in Rome and Reggio Calabria as part of an investigation into the Commisso and Coluccio-Aquino clans, after police discovered large amounts of cocaine among tulips from Amsterdam.

Police said a lorry was sent from Italy to the Netherlands containing cash, and returned with tulips and the drugs.

But the flowers didn’t go to waste. A police statement said: “They [the mobsters] controlled vast segments of the Dutch flower markets.” Federico Cafiero de Raho, a prosecutor in the southern city of Reggio Calabria, where most of the arrests were made, revealed that one of the figures at the heart of a huge drug smuggling ring was also the owner of a flower import-export business “used to recycle dirty money”. As part of the probe, police also found 250 tonnes of stolen Lindt chocolates, worth €7m, near Latina, south of Rome.

Investigators said the unusual seizures reflected the crime syndicate’s ability to exploit new and overseas markets. “It has a great ability to adapt itself to what the market offers and predict what sectors are going to be big,” Michele Prestipino, a Rome prosecutor told La Stampa.

Mr Cafiero de Raho hailed the importance of the arrests. “This was an historic operation because it struck part of the ’Ndrangheta elite,” he said. His colleague Nicola Gratteri described it as “the most important investigation of the past 10 years”.

The Commisso clan alone is thought to have 500 killers at its disposal, while the Aquino has extensive international connections.

The drugs were found in the tulips with the help of Dutch investigators – assistance that was praised by Italy’s national anti-Mafia prosecutor Franco Roberti. “International cooperation is very important,” he said. “And this case it worked very well.”