BBC News, 26
July 2013
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Stories
Italian police have arrested at least 50 people in a big anti-Mafia operation in the coastal region near Rome.
About 500
police officers, backed by dog units, a helicopter and coastal patrol boats are
involved.
A police
operation was also launched in the southern Calabria region, a hotbed of
'Ndrangheta Mafia crime.
The Rome
crackdown, focused on the coastal suburb of Ostia, is said to be the largest
yet in or near the capital. Three crime clans are being targeted.
Italy's
Corriere della Sera says a "mortal blow" has been delivered to the
Fasciani, Triassi and D'Agati clans, who have dominated organised crime for
years in that region.
The Triassi
clan is reported to have close ties to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra crime network.
Police had
been able to monitor the mafiosi not only as they met to settle disputes and
divide up territory, but also as they planned murders, Italian media report.
Professionals
under suspicion
The
operation in the south led to 65 arrests, including doctors, lawyers and
entrepreneurs, in the town of Lamezia Terme, Italy's Ansa news agency reports.
It is unusual for Mafia gangs to be targeted in or near the Italian capital |
As part of
that operation Senator Piero Aiello, a member of former Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party, is under
investigation, Ansa reports.
Police
seized 200m euros' (£173m; $266m) worth of assets from five businessmen,
suspected of involvement with the Giampa clan of the Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta
crime network.
The
suspects include Gianpaolo Bevilacqua, vice president of the company that runs
Lamezia Terme airport and a former provincial councillor for the PdL.
The Giampa
clan is suspected of an insurance fraud, used to fund arms and drugs and to pay
mafiosi.
Police are
also investigating murders committed in a clan war that raged in 2005-2011.
The
'Ndrangheta is now reckoned to be Italy's most powerful mafia, having overtaken
Sicily's Cosa Nostra. The 'Ndrangheta operates across Europe and has
connections with Colombian drug cartels.
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