2 Casamonicas arrested for extortion

(ANSA) - Rome, June 19 - Two members of the Casamonica Rome crime family were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of extortion and robbery, both aggravated by using mafia methods. The pair were taken to jail in the early hours of Wednesday, police said.
    The arrests came after an Egyptian national filed a complaint in February.
    He was allegedly struck by Guido Casamonica, one of those arrested, while trying to get some rent money back, police said.
    On Friday Rome prosecutors requested the indictment of 63 people in a proposed 'maxi-trial' against the Casamonica mafia clan.
    Those probed are accused of mafia conspiracy, drug trafficking and pushing, loan sharking and illegal weapons possession.
    The preliminary hearings will be set over the coming weeks, judicial sources said.
    The investigations have lasted over four years and have seen scores of arrests, raids and searches.
    The crime clan suffered its most recent blow on May 9 when 22 people allegedly belonging to it were arrested in an operation by Carabinieri police.
    The operation aimed to break up an alleged criminal association to deal drugs in Rome's Via del Quadraro and Porta Furba districts that was estimated to have generated over 100,000 euros a month.
    "It is another blow to the clan. The institutions are present," said Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi.
    The Casamonicas, who have Roma and Traveller origins, have long been considered the most powerful mafia-style group in Rome.
    The clan is thought to have around 1,000 members and is involved in illegal activities ranging from loan sharking to drug trafficking, according to investigators.
    The clan has accumulation millions of euros that it has invested in villas, luxury cars and race horses, among other assets.
    There was a scandal in 2015 when one clan boss had a Godfather-like funeral complete with music from the iconic film and rose petals dropped onto a horse-drawn hearse from a helicopter.
    In July last year the gang suffered a major blow when 37 people were arrested in an operation targeting it.
    The clan was bust wide open, police said, thanks to the State's evidence of the sister-in-law of a boss, the partner of Massimiliano Casamonica, brother of clan chieftain Giuseppe Casamonica.
    Never accepted by the clan, she is now under police protection and her identity is being protected too, investigators said.