Scores of mafia suspects held in Italy, Germany

Rome, Oct 5 (IANS/AKI) Police in Italy and Germany have arrested 37 Sicilian mafia suspects in an operation against its Rinzivillo clan, seizing over 11 million euros of assets.

Police held 35 people in Italy, in Sicily, in the central Lazio region and in the northern Lombardy, Piedmont and Emilia Romagna regions, Il Giornale della Sicilia daily said on Wednesday, citing police.

Among the suspects arrested was 57-year-old clan boss Salvatore Rinzivillo, who had lived in Rome since his release from jail in 2013, the daily reported.

Those arrested included two Carabinieri police officers accused of hacking police databases and passing confidential information to the Rinzivillo clan.

Also targeted by the operation was a Rome-based lawyer, Giandomenico D'Ambra, who faces charges of mafia association, according to the paper.

The other two arrests were made in unspecified locations in Germany, the Giornale della Sicilia said.

The bust came after a "complex" probe coordinated by Italy's national anti-mafia and anti-terrorism directorate which involved anti-mafia prosecutors in Rome and Caltanissetta.

The investigation uncovered the Gela-based Rinzivillos' operations in Rome, northern Italy and in Germany, where the clan was building a drug trafficking racket and was in contact with notorious Calabrian mafia fugitive Antonio Strangio, Giornale della Sicilia reported.

--IANS/AKI

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