Police on Thursday
arrested three alleged members of the Camorra mafia on suspicion
of extorting money from a film company shooting the Gomorra TV
series, which is about the trio's own Neapolitan crime clan.
Cattleya production company was forced to pay 6,000 euros
more than originally agreed to in order to shoot inside a flat
belonging to a relative of Camorra clan chief Francesco Gallo in
the crime-infested Naples suburb of Torre Annunziata, police
sources said.
The Gomorra series is a spin-off from the cinema adaptation
of anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano's best-selling book about
the Camorra mob, which earned the author numerous death threats
and a life under police protection.
Prosecutors also placed Cattleya's location manager Gennaro
Aquino and producers Gianluca Arcopinto and Matteo De Laurentiis
under investigation on suspicion of hushing up the extortion and
tipping the suspects off to their imminent arrests.
Aquino is also being investigated for attempting to bribe
three policemen to shut down a street so filming could take
place. Prosecutors charge he offered them 300 euros.
Cattleya denied being extorted.
"We are not aware of any excess payments made," the
production company said in a statement.
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