Sep 30 2008
Dozens arrested in crackdown on Naples mafia
ROME — Police carried out dozens of arrests in the Naples area Tuesday as part of a crackdown on the Camorra mafia following the killings of an Italian businessman and six African immigrants.
“The war against the Camorra will continue until it is won,” said Interior Minister Roberto Maroni as he announced the arrests at a televised news conference, referring to the local mafia in the southern port city.
The two operations were “the state’s first big response to this war declared by the Camorra,” he added.
Some 30 members of the Camorra’s powerful Casalesi clan were arrested in one sweep, including three suspects in the September 18 killings of six Africans and an Italian in the Naples area.
The three men were also wanted for other killings apart from the twin attacks in and near Castel Volturno, police said.
In the first of the two shootings, whose motives remain unclear, the Italian owner of a local recreation hall was killed, while in the second, three Ghanaians, two Liberians and a Togolese were gunned down at a tailor’s shop.
Investigators thought the killings may have been part of a turf battle in the region’s drug trafficking involving many Africans — though none of the victims was linked to the trade.
Investigators say the killers numbered between six and eight.
A first suspect in the carnage, among the worst in recent years in Italy, was arrested on September 22.
A separate crackdown was also carried out Tuesday in the Caserta region, north of Naples, against the Casalesi clan, blamed for dozens of deaths over the past three decades.
Investigators were acting on 107 arrest warrants issued by Naples prosecutors, the largest since the massive Spartacus operation of 1998 that led to life sentences for 16 clan members, police investigator Rodolfo Ruperti said.
About 70 of the warrants fingered suspects who are already awaiting trial or serving time in other cases, he said, adding that another 26 had been arrested.
The suspects are accused of criminal association, extortion and homicide, Ruperti told AFP.
Those arrested included 48-year-old Giuseppina Nappa, the wife of clan leader Francesco “Sandokan” Schiavone, 55, who has been in prison since 1998 and is serving a life term, Ruperti said.
Nappa is accused of receiving monthly stipends that the mafia pays to the families of jailed members.
Those arrested also included a lawyer accused of extortion.
Investigators were meanwhile seizing assets and commercial enterprises worth 100 million euros (140 million dollars) belonging to suspected clan members in Caserta, Rome and the central Tuscany region, reports said.
The fight against the Camorra “is being won in terms of assets,” Maroni said on a talk show earlier Tuesday. The assets “are not theirs but they … belong to the citizens.”
Confiscating the assets “gives a strong signal to all that crime doesn’t pay,” said Maroni, who last week said the Camorra had “declared a civil war on the state.”
The government approved a three-month deployment of nearly 500 soldiers to help police fight the mafia in the region after some 400 police reinforcements arrived in the area on September 22.
The soldiers were to deploy by the end of the week, Maroni said.
Dozens arrested in crackdown on Naples mafia – 30/09/2008 11:09 – AFP – This story was found at: http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=africa&item=080930110918.b4z7wsz8.php
