Premier Matteo Renzi expressed
shock and anger at revelations that a new mafia allegedly
infiltrated Italy's cash-stripped capital city of Rome, where
residents awoke Thursday to the scandal involving a former mayor
and a host of other senior officials.
Lower House Speaker Laura Boldrini expressed "total
outrage" over news that broke Wednesday when police announced
that former right-wing Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno was among some
100 people under investigation in a probe into a mafia gang that
allegedly diverted public contracts worth hundreds of millions
of euros.
Late in the day, some 37 arrests had been made and police
alleged a former terrorist who lost one eye in a police
shoot-out years ago was among the leaders of the mafia group.
Renzi, who leads the centre-left Democratic Party (PD)
announced the appointment of MP Matteo Orfini as Rome
commissioner for the political party to examine any possible
links with the former city administration now under scrutiny.
"I'm shocked and upset seeing so serious a person as the
prosecutor of Rome talk about mafia in Rome," Renzi said late
Wednesday.
He added that even if the accused are associated with the
political right and far-right, it was still shocking for all
parties and has triggered "a need for deep reflection".
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) called for the
current city government, led by PD Mayor Ignazio Marino who was
elected last year to replace Alemanno, to be dissolved in the
wake of the mafia shock.
Marino maintained that his new administration "has barred
the doors to anyone wanted to influence it in any way".
Among those put behind bars Wednesday was the Roman
mobsters' alleged leader Massimo Carminati, a former member of
the NAR neofascist terrorist group and of the Banda della
Magliana crime gang.
Judicial documents suggested his allies boasted of how much
profit his gang was making off scamming city funding for migrant
settlement centres, including social housing for Roma people.
"Do you have any idea how much I make on these immigrants?"
Carminati's right-hand man Salvatore Buzzi allegedly says in a
1,200-page wiretap from early 2013.
"Drug trafficking is not as profitable".
"We closed this year with turnover of 40 million but...our
profits all came from the gypsies (Roma people), the housing
emergency and the immigrants," Buzzi said.
"We didn't make any money in the other sectors," he added.
These sectors, according to prosecution documents, included
waste management and recycling, parks maintenance, and immigrant
and refugee reception centers (CIEs).
The immigrant racket - which allegedly involved controlling
the social cooperatives running the CIEs and the Roma people
camps - was allegedly coordinated by Luca Odevaine, a deputy
cabinet secretary under former center-left mayor Walter
Veltroni.
"This gentleman crisscrossed all key public offices
dealing with the immigrant emergency, both vertically and
horizontally," prosecutors wrote.
"Odevaine used his contacts...to steer authorities to
follow his indications, aimed at furthering the economic
interests of certain entrepreneurs, which he shared," the
prosecution wrote.
"We must take the measure of (current mayor) Marino," Buzzi
continues in the wiretap from early 2013, soon after the
Democratic Party (PD) candidate Marino replaced Alemanno.
Marino, it appears, proved difficult to approach.
"They trust (center-left Lazio Governor Nicola) Zingaretti,
no one trusts Marino," Buzzi says in the wiretap.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA