Italian ROS security police
and finance guards on Wednesday arrested 94 people in the
largest ever bust against the mafia clans in and around the
Sicilian city of Messina.
Over 600 police fanned out across the Messina and Nebrodi
areas.
Some 150 businesses were impounded in the operation.
Police said they had decapitated the Batanesi and Bontempo
Scavo clans.
A key part of the clans' activity was the appropriation of EU
funds, police said.
The clans illegally pocketed more than 5.5 million euros of
EU farming funds, police said.
They staged hundreds of fraud operations against the Italian
agency for issuing funds to agriculture, AGEA, police said.
Police said local society had become "resigned" to the
presence and activities of he mafia.
"They infiltrated all the nerve centres of the local
economy," the police said.
According to investigators the Batanesis and the Bontemp
Scavos decided not to fight turf wars but instead team up in
their illegal activities.
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