Some 80 people have been arrested in the Netherlands as part of a massive Europe-wide crackdown on organised crime, EU police organisation Europol said on Wednesday.

In total, law enforcement officers from 34 countries took part and 1,027 individuals were arrested.

Operation Archimedes involved targeting organised crime groups and their infrastructures across the EU in a series of actions at hundreds of locations over a nine day period. Europol is based in The Hague.

Drugs

In total, 599 kg of cocaine and 200 kg of heroin were seized and 30 children were saved from trafficking. According to Dutch media reports, the children were Romanian nationals.

The crackdown focused on ‘disrupting the activities of the most threatening criminal groups and top targets active in key crime hotspots across Europe’, Europol said in a statement.

According to Dutch media reports, some of the people arrested in the Netherlands were members of eastern European gangs who were stealing luxury cars and exporting them to other countries.