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ROME, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Italian police on Tuesday arrested at least 19 people in an operation against drug dealers within a soccer fan club in the northern Bergamo province, authorities said.
Overall, some 26 people were put under investigation, 11 of which were brought to jail, and seven put under house arrest, according to a police statement.
All those involved were variously charged with drug trafficking and drug dealing, extortion, robbery and resisting arrest.
Prosecutors had launched the probe in late 2015, focusing on a group of "ultras" belonging to the Bergamo-based Atalanta soccer club.
All of the people arrested were Italians, but for a Serb national and an Albanian citizen, and most of them belonged to the team's official fan group, police said.
The suspects would have supplied "huge quantities of drug" -- and especially cocaine -- among Atalanta supporters, Ansa news agency cited police sources as saying.
The son of a local prosecutor was among those arrested, the agency also reported.
The drug dealing would have regularly taken place in bars near the local stadium, as well as within it, ahead of the matches of Italy's first-division soccer league to which Atalanta team belongs, according to police.
Furthermore, it would have played a major role in fuelling both Atalanta ultras' violence during matches in Bergamo, and clashes with other clubs' supporters outside stadiums, investigators also alleged.
Such conduct "was ascertained also in the case of the violent clashes occurred in Bergamo city after a match between Atalanta and Inter Milan teams in January 2016", according to the police.
At the time, a group of some 40 Atalanta ultras attacked the rival team's supporters with stones, paper bombs, and smoke bombs, and at least ten of them were later arrested.
Although the traffic mostly concerned cocaine, some 10 kg of marijuana and 4 kg of hashish were also seized on Tuesday, according to Milan-based Il Giorno newspaper.
The operation was carried out by police in Bergamo along with special units of Italian police's Central Operational Office.
