$A1.15b seized over Mafia links in Italy

Italian police on Saturday confiscated 800 million euros ($A1.15 billion) in cash and property belonging to a Mafia-linked businessman in Sicily, a statement from the Carabinieri paramilitary police said.
The money and property were frozen following the arrest of one of Sicily’s most successful businessmen, Michele Aiello, 56, who has since been jailed for 15-and-a-half years [...]

Meet Ilda Boccassini, the lady who scares the Italian Mob

A fearless anti-Mafia judge has launched a new onslaught against the country’s most dangerous gangsters
Ilda Boccassini has had some spectacular moments in her 30-year career as a prosecutor, taking on the Sicilian Mafia, corrupt fellow magistrates and the terrorists of the Red Brigades.
But none have been quite so dramatic as the morning last week when [...]

Italian ‘Ndrangheta steps out of Mafia’s shadow

Following Tuesday’s arrests of at least 300 suspected members of the ‘Ndrangheta, the BBC’s Duncan Kennedy in Rome takes a closer look at the Italian crime family.
The wedding scene in The Godfather is a sumptuous affair, replete with hope, but laced with menace.
Now, undercover police agents in Italy have infiltrated the real thing and revealed [...]

Italian police create profile of fugitive

ROME, July 1 (UPI) — Italian police hunting a Mafia boss on the run since 1993 say they have reconstructed a genetic DNA profile of the fugitive.
The profile of Matteo Messina Denaro, the so-called Godfather of Trapani, was assembled from evidence, including hair, obtained from Denaro’s brothers without their knowledge, ANSA reported Thursday.
The profile is [...]

Italian police arrest 15 alleged mafia members

Rome – Special police units in the Sicilian capital of Palermo on Friday arrested 15 alleged mafia members during dawn raids, Italian media reported.
The Cosa Nostra clan members are suspected of having extorted money from businessmen in the construction industry and of being involved in the drugs trade.
Anti-protection money organisations on the Italian island applauded [...]

‘Depressed’ mafia mobster released from prison

A mafia mobster responsible for one of Italy’s most shocking crimes – dissolving in acid the son of a police informer – has been released from a life prison sentence because he is depressed and has diabetes.
The decision to let Sicilian mafia godfather Salvatore ‘Vito’ Vitale, 64, out of jail has outraged the victims of [...]

Italy police seize weapons in mafia raids

Italian police arrested dozens of members of various mafia groups in a vast operation that netted large caches of weapons smuggled from Bosnia.
Anti-Mafia Police said the raids where carried out in several areas of southern Italy against members of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Naples-area Camorra seeking to wrest control of the fruit and [...]

Will Mafia client come back to haunt McDonald?

There’s no way to hide it, and Dennis McDonald doesn’t see the need to, anyway, so here goes:
McDonald — Democratic candidate for Congress, former chairman of the Montana Democratic Party, and a rancher near Melville for the past 22 years — was once the lawyer for the acting boss of the West Coast Cosa Nostra [...]

Brother of mafia kingpin arrested in Sicily

Trapani, Italy – Italian police on Monday arrested 19 mafia suspects in Sicily, including Salvatore Messina Denaro the brother of the Cosa Nostra’s alleged “boss of bosses”, Matteo Messina Denaro.
More than 200 police were deployed in morning raids in and around the western Sicilian town of Trapani in what officials said was an operation targeting [...]

Mafia investment ‘gave Silvio Berlusconi his big break’

The Mafia invested heavily in a 1970s housing project which gave Silvio Berlusconi his big break in business, an Italian court heard.
The allegation that Sicily’s Cosa Nostra helped finance the project was made in a Palermo court by Massimo Ciancimino, the son of a Mafia don who was close to the head of the Sicilian [...]

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