Assets worth 5 mn euros seized from 'Ndrangheta boss

Turin (Italy), Feb 22 (IANS/AKI) Police on Wednesday impounded assets worth five million euros from jailed Calabrian mafia boss Francesco Ietto including four companies and a fleet of over 30 trucks and cars.

Anti-mafia prosecutors in the northwest Italian city of Turin ordered the seizure of the assets from Ietto.

Ietto, who was arrested in 2015 and sentenced to seven years and four months in jail, had continued to launder money for the Calabrian mafia or 'Ndrangheta's Reggio Calabria while under house arrest, according to investigators.

His Natile di Careri mafia clan is active in Calabria, the province of Turin and the province of Milan, investigators said.

In early February, anti-mafia police in the northwest Italian coastal city of Genoa impounded property worth more than 20 million euros from two businessmen as part of a probe targeting the 'Ndrangheta.

The seized assets included industrial vehicles and shares in companies, as well as various items of real estate and bank accounts, several of which were located in France and Switzerland, police said.

Meanwhile, police in southern Italy on Wednesday arrested 14 Calabrian mafia suspects in an operation against clan bosses in and around the city of Lamezia Terme.

The suspects face charges of mafia association, murder, extortion and arms trafficking, police said.

"Investigations have shown the suspects were extensively involved in extortion against local businesses, " said police statement.

"They also revealed a deal agreed between the Iannazzo and Giampa clan bosses to divide up earnings from the local extortion racket," it said.

The suspects were behind the 2003 murders of two rival that formed part of a "criminal strategy" to give the Iannazzo and Cannizzaro-Daponte clans sole control of the Lamezia Terme area, especially the extortion racket, by eliminating rival clan leaders, according to police.

Drug trafficking, extortion and money-laundering rackets have in recent decades made the 'Ndrangheta Italy's wealthiest and most powerful international crime syndicate. It operates throughout Italy and overseas and its influence and networks extend from northern Europe to Australia and North and South America.

--IANS/AKI

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