Italian pop station raided by anti-mafia

(ANSA) - Vibo Valentia, April 22 - Italy's most popular radio station, RTL 102.5, was raided in offices across the country Thursday by anti-mafia police for suspicion of ties to the 'Ndrangheta crime group. Investigators in Rome, Naples, Bergamo and outside Milan seized evidence from the station, which through a mix of top-hits pop songs and soccer broadcasts is the country's largest by listenership.
    Police suspect links to the Tripodi gang of Vibo Valentia, a city in the southern Calabria region where the 'Ndrangheta is based. The alleged head of the clan, Nicola Tripodi, gets his sole source of official income from the company Gest.i.tel Srl, a fixed-line telecom group that belongs to RTL 102.5, despite not doing any work, police said. Meanwhile Tripodi's son Orlando came up in a parallel investigation in the northern Lombardy region Tuesday for alleged illicit business dealings linked to his father. Through its stranglehold on the European cocaine trade, the 'Ndrangheta is today considered more powerful than the Naples-based Camorra and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.