Rome
Italian police said Wednesday they had seized assets worth two billion euros ($2.2 billion) belonging to a powerful organised crime syndicate, in the latest sting against the mafia.
The assets snatched from the 'Ndrangheta mafia, which controls much of Europe's cocaine trade, included more than 1,500 betting shops, 82 online gambling sites and almost 60 companies, as well as numerous properties, the police said.
Prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 28 people suspected of running the gambling empire and placed 23 others either under house arrest or ordered them to check in with the police.
The crew is believed to have been headed by mobster Mario Gennaro, who made his way up through the mob in the southern region of Calabria from local to regional chief because of the gambling ring's success.
The 'Ndrangheta is considered the most powerful crime syndicate in Italy, having surpassed Sicily's Cosa Nostra and the Naples-based Camorra thanks to the wealth it has amassed as the principal importer and wholesaler of cocaine produced in Latin America and smuggled into Europe via north Africa and southern Italy.
Profits from the trade, which is worth billions, were laundered through the gambling empire. The gang "recycled an enormous amount of 'dirty' money through the use of gaming accounts assigned to willing or unwitting people", police said in a statement.
"They bypassed the laws governing this sector, accumulating significant profits that were then reinvested in the acquisition of new companies and licences to further expand their activities." Eleven of the companies seized were based abroad, in Austria, Malta, Romania and Spain.
