Rome, Jul. 24, (dpa/GNA) – An Italian investigation dubbed “Game over” has managed to arrest 82 suspected Mafia members in a large-scale crackdown on organized crime, said police on Monday.
The operation targeted members of the so-called “Società foggiana,” the Mafia in Foggia, and their businesses, the Carabinieri said on Monday.
The suspects are accused of drug trafficking, illegal possession of weapons, and extortion. Weapons and drugs were seized during the raid in the province of Foggia in the southern Italian region of Apulia.
The members of three clans of the Foggia Mafia had apparently reached a drug trafficking agreement which saw them rake in millions each year.
According to the report, the clans decided to put their rivalries to one side in favour of monopolizing the cocaine trade in the southern Italian territory. The proceeds flowed into a common fund from which the clans and families of convicted Mafiosi profited.
The business model of the three clans was based on “systematic extortion,” said the Carabinieri, and on an “aggressive and careful regulatory system” of trafficking.
Monday’s operation is the third strike on the Foggia Mafia in the past seven years, with a total of 150 arrests having been made.
Italy’s Interior Minister, Matteo Piantedosi, thanked the police who, he said, had “dealt a heavy blow” to the Foggia Mafia in an “impressive operation.”
GNA