ROME (AFP) – Italian police launched a major operation yesterday against one the country’s most violent mafia groups, targeting 82 people suspected of drug trafficking and dealing in the southern region of Puglia.
Around 500 police officers staged early morning raids against suspected members of the Foggia mafia, which operates in and around the southeastern city of the same name. Italy’s youngest mafia has a stranglehold over the vast southeastern province of Foggia, cementing its control over the local population through extortion carried out by family-based battalions.
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi hailed the operation as a very strong blow against the Foggia mafia, one of the most dangerous and violent criminal organisations.
Warrants were issued for 81 people to go to jail and another to house arrest, police said in a statement, although it was not clear whether some suspects were already incarcerated.
The investigation that led to yesterday’s Operation ‘Game Over’ reconstructed how funds derived from extorting the local population contributed to a so-called common fund to pay mafia associates and those in prison.
