It is indelibly associated with the rolling hills of Sicily, but the mafia is now being forced to move to Germany after years of economic decline on the island.

The Italian clans have suffered over recent years due to a slump in the construction industry, one of its key businesses, and a determined police crackdown.

This has forced them to head north, as demonstrated by the arrest of 19 suspected drug traffickers in the southern German city of Villingen-Schwenningen on June 21.

The clans of Sicily have suffered over recent years due to an economic slump. Pictured is the site where mafia boss Giuseppe Dainotti was shot dead in Palermo on May 22 this year

The men were seized with €4m worth of goods and money in a joint operation between German officers and the Palermo branch of the Italian finance police.

The gang were said to be operating in Rottweil and Stuttgart, in Baden-Wurttemberg, the German state with the lowest poverty rate, the Guardian reported.

Italian police have accused the gang of smuggling tonnes of cocaine and marijuana from Albania to Germany.

The mobsters laundered the profits in slot machines which they forced bar owners to install, and might have used other proceeds to buy weapons in the Balkans.

The Cosa Nostra is still active in Sicily, but a crackdown has led to hundreds of arrests. Pictured is the house of Bernardo Provenzano, a mafioso seized in 2006

The Cosa Nostra is still active in Sicily, but a crackdown over the last 25 years have seen hundreds of Mafiosi arrested.

This includes Salvatore 'Toto' Riina, the Boss of Bosses, who ordered the killings of Falcone and Borsellino.

Provenzano, pictured in 1959, became Italy's most wanted man and went on the run for four decades

They have also struggled following a 90% in profits for the island's construction industry since 2007.

Hard-up businessmen are now often reporting threats by gangs like Cosa Nostra to the police rather than paying protection money.

There has been a mafia presence in Germany for many years.

In March, mafia man Santo Vottari, 45, was arrested in Calabria after ten years on the run following the deaths of six Italians in the western German city of Duisburg.

Vottari was one of 31 people sentenced to prison in 2009 in connection with the incident, which happened after a feud between two clans spiralled out of control.

The battle between the Nirta-Strangio and Pelle-Vottari clans reportedly began with an egg-throwing prank in 1991.

Reprisals escalated after the killing, on Christmas Day, 2006, of Maria Strangio, the wife of clan leader Giovanni Nirta.

A view of the Tempio del Monte Jato cooperative, pictured in July 2002. This was one of the largest land holdings confiscated from the mafia in Sicily

The feud was blamed for at least 16 deaths in total, with the killings in Germany bringing it to international attention.

Giovanni Strangio was convicted in 2011 of being the mastermind and one of the authors of the Duisburg killings.

He was sentenced to life in prison. Seven others were given life sentences linked to the feud at the same trial.