Diotallevi assets worth 25mn seized

(ANSA) - Rome, April 28 - Authorities on Tuesday seized assets worth 25 million euros from crime boss Ernesto Diotallevi, whom prosecutors believe to be the local representative of Sicily's Cosa Nostra mafia.
    The assets include businesses, bank accounts, artwork, real estate in Rome and Sardinian resort of Olbia, and a hotel in the resort town of Fiuggi.
    The move was requested by prosecutors investigating an alleged Mafia ring that has allegedly been looting the Eternal City for years by muscling in on public contracts.
    In the course of that investigation, wiretaps revealed mobsters also planned to set up a contraband fuel oil scam to be based at the port of Fiumicino. Magistrates last December decided to open a new line of inquiry after Diotallevi was recorded telling his sons Leonardo and Mario on the telephone that "if we throw ourselves into smuggling...you could go at it for two years like a...
    bulldozer".
    The Carabinieri special anti-mafia unit (ROS) said the phone taps showed Diotallevi senior, aged 70, wanted "to install a petrol pump at (Fiumicino) naval docks in order to (divert) fuel with his sons Mario and Leonardo and with the participation of Mario Gonelli (former centre-right candidate for mayor of Fiumicino) and (Finance Guard sergeant) Giuseppe Volpe".
    "The operation was aimed at re-selling fuel on the black market," the ROS report said.
    Tuesday's court-ordered asset seizure paves the way for similar measures against key Mafia Capitale suspects. Among them is suspected ringleader, former gangster and ex-rightwing terrorist Massimo Carminati, who was arrested late last year on charges including fraud, money laundering, embezzlement and bribing public officials.