Police in southern Italy say they have broken up an insurance fraud run by a crime syndicate that counted on the collusion of doctors, lawyers and auto repair shop owners.
Rodolfo Ruperti, a police official based in Catanzaro, a stronghold of the Calabria-based 'ndrangheta syndicate, said Friday the bosses of its Giampa' clan used the scheme's proceeds, millions of euros annually, to pay the "salaries" of rank-and-file mobsters.
A total of 65 warrants were issued, but many of those sought are already in prison for other crimes.
Separately, Italy's war on organised crime has a new anti-Mafia czar. Franco Roberti, a veteran prosecutor who has battled the Camorra crime syndicate in the Campania region, was named as the national anti-Mafia prosecutor, succeeding Pietro Grasso, now Senate president.
