A huge police operation saw
people suspected of links with the Arena clan of the 'Ndrangheta
mafia in the town of Isola Capo Rizzuto, near Crotone, detained
on Monday.
The operation is linked to an investigation into the
clan's alleged involvement in the management of migrant
reception.
The head of the Misericordia association in Isola
Capo Rizzuto, Leonardo Sacco, and parish priest Edoardo
Scordio, were among those detained.
Father Scordio allegedly laundered proceeds from the scam in
Swizteralnd, through his brother who lives there.
Misericordia runs a local reception centre for asylum seekers
that is one of the biggest in Europe.
Through Sacco, the Arena clan managed to land contracts from
the Crotone prefecture to supply catering services for the
reception centres at Isola Capo Rizzuto and on the island of
Lampedusa, where most migrants make landfall, investigative
sources said.
The contracts were entrusted to companies specially set up by
the Arenas and other 'Ndrangheta families to divvy up the funds
destined for migrant reception, the sources said.
The Arenas also muscled in on online gambling and hiring
entertainment machines, sources said.
They had assumed a "dominant position" in this sector in
Crotone and its hinterland, police said, using their powers of
intimidation to make huge profits by altering the competitive
balance and concentrating gambling in the hands of organised
crime, pushing out legitimate commercial operators, police
sources said.
National Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC) chief Raffaele
Cantone said the operation had "I think, only revealed the tip
of the iceberg".
Catanzaro prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, who spearheads the
'Ndrangheta fight, said "wherever there is power or money there
is 'Ndrangheta, which even exploits the needs of the desperate".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
