Jun 12 2008
11 arrested on suspicion of burying mafia rubbish
Italian police say 11 entrepreneurs suspected of links with the Naples-area Camorra mafia have been arrested, accused of illegally burying household rubbish and sometimes toxic industrial waste.
The businessmen of the Caserta region, north of Naples, were arrested at dawn on the orders of Naples’ anti-mafia prosecutors.
They are accused of earning great sums by secretly burying rubbish in municipal dumps or vacant ground, even in some cases farmland.
The accused are thought to have links with the Casalesi clan, the most powerful mafia family in the Caserta area.
The police confiscated 45 apartments and several houses, shops and land parcels including some belonging to these businessmen with a combined value of more than 40 million euros ($65 million).
Police were acting on a tip-off from a former mafia operative in the waste disposal sector.
The Camorra, with some 5,000 members in Naples’ Campania region, have been deeply implicated in the chronic waste disposal problems of the area.
The impoverished southern region has been suffering for more than a decade from the crisis caused by a lack of dumps, the absence of waste incinerators and virtually non-existent waste sorting facilities.
11 arrested on suspicion of burying mafia rubbish - AFP - Posted Thu Jun 12, 2008 12:29am AEST - http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/12/2272044.htm
