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.
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