Coronavirus: Mafia members trying to exploit crisis arrested
Officers from the Financial Guard also seized 鈧�15m (拢13m) in suspected ill-gained assets, including 13 race horses.
Tuesday 12 May 2020 16:50, UK
Mafia mobsters are trying to cash in on the coronavirus crisis by buying up ailing businesses with laundered money, Italian police claim.
Hundreds of officers swarmed the Sicilian capital of Palermo early on Tuesday morning in a bid to stop the island's Cosa Nostra from exploiting the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
They detained 91 suspects in multiple raids across Sicily and parts of northern Italy for a string of offences including money laundering, drug trafficking, extortion and match fixing.
Investigators claim they were trying to use money obtained through these illegal means to buy up hotels, restaurants, pharmacies and other firms so they could exert more power.
One suspect was heard saying "Look, we pay cash" in an intercepted phone call, Palermo chief prosecutor Lo Voi claimed.
Officers from the Financial Guard also seized €15m (£13m) in suspected ill-gained assets, including 13 race horses.
Ordering the arrests, Palermo magistrate Piergiorgio Morosini said the lockdown "has caused a liquidity crisis that will be hard to reverse" for many businesses - a situation that organised crime would be eager to exploit, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.
Prosecutors, including those investigating Italy's most dominant crime syndicate, the Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta, have warned the mafia could also recruit those left jobless in the lockdown.
Italy was the first European country to be hit hard by coronavirus, with 219,814 confirmed cases nationwide and 30,739 deaths.
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Mafia bosses have sought to take over businesses across Italy for years - even before COVID-19 hit.
Italian crime syndicates have been known to go on property-buying sprees since the 1990s to try to make "clean" money from dirty profits.
The crime clans targeted in Tuesday's raids had moved some of their leaders to Milan in recent years, where, among other businesses, they have convinced cafes to buy coffee from a company controlled by the Sicilian mafia, investigators said.