State, Carabinieri and finance
police staged a huge operation on Tuesday to crack down on crime
in the Camorra mafia-ridden town of Caivano near Naples, where
two cousins aged 10 and 12 were allegedly raped by a group of
youths recently.
Over 400 officers were employed in dawn raids staged as part of
the "Alto Impatto" (High Impact) operation.
The rapes shocked the nation and prompted Premier Giorgia Meloni
to visit Caivano last week to the show the presence of the
State.
She said 'no-fly zones' where crime is free to run rampant
without State intervention must not tolerated.
During Tuesday's raids, the police searched drug dens,
identified suspects and found a bag containing 30,000 euros in
cash.
"The Meloni government is determined to re-assert security and
law and order throughout the national territory, starting from
areas that have been in difficulty for too long," said Interior
Minister Matteo Piantedosi.
"We started with the big (railway) stations (in big cities),
then with (the Rome seaside district of) Ostia and today with
Caivano.
"In the next few days we will address other problematic
environments so that there are no no-fly zones.
"The State is working to bring back security in every fringe
area of the country".
The government is set to crack down on juvenile crime after what
happened in Caivano and several other headline-grabbing cases,
including that of an 18-year-old woman who was allegedly gang
raped by youths in Palermo.
The potential new measures range from the possibility of
ordering the expulsion from certain urban areas (DASPOs) to
minors between 14 and 18 years of age, to verbal warnings from
the police commissioner for the same age group, to a beefed-up
fight against the spread of firearms.
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