German police are investigating a link with the Italian underworld in the murders this morning of six young men in the western German city of Duisburg.
The six Italian men were shot dead early today in an execution-style killing linked to a mafia feud, it is believed.
Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said in Rome the shootings appeared to be the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between two mafia clans in the southern region of Calabria, home to the 'Ndrangheta organised crime group.
All the victims were shot in the head. Five of them were aged between 16 and 25 and the other was 38-years-old.
The brazen attack in a foreign country is unprecedented, said Italian investigators, who fear a bloody riposte by victims' relatives in keeping with the tradition of vendetta.
"We are now trying to prevent a similar tragedy [in Calabria]," Mr Amato told a news conference.
German police in the depressed northwestern city of Duisburg confirmed the victims came from the Calabria area and said they could not rule out the possibility of a mafia connection.
"We are exploring all possibilities, we are excluding nothing," Heinz Sprenger, head of the murder commission, told reporters. He said it would take a few days for the post-mortem results to come through.
They are looking for two male suspects spotted running near the scene around the time of the murders.