Italian police have seized more than 120 million euros in assets from the Ndrangheta in a major blitz against the crime group in the Rome region on Wednesday.
The seized assets include 173 properties located between Rome, Rignano Flaminio, Morlupo, Campagnano Romano, Grottaferrata and other Italian provinces.
250 officers from 11 police headquarters were involved in the sweeping raids that targeted leading figures of the Calabrian crime family installed in the region around Rome since the 1980s.
In a statement Italian police said that their investigations into the business activities of the suspects showed a considerable disproportion between the assets they owned and the incomes they declared.
“All this led the police to believe that it was the result of illicit activities that mainly involved extortion, usury and fictitious heading of assets aggravated by the mafia method, profoundly polluting the legal economy, also making use of the contribution of specific professional skills, institutional and banking systems.”
Besides the buildings, 40 companies, including seven supermarkets, a Ferrari, 4 cattle farms and a jewelry store were also seized. The criminal gang is accused of carrying out offences including abductions, extortion, and the trafficking of drugs and weapons. They are also believed to have infiltrated several legitimate industries such as the wholesale distribution of flowers and plants, of the sale of firewood, cattle and goat farming, bars, the precious goods trade and real estate, among numerous others.
Italian Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, thanked the “police and investigators” for their actions.
“Yesterday I was in Calabria to promise zero tolerance against the clans: arrests and kidnappings are the best answer to those who ask for cleanliness and legality”, Salvini said .
