Post by TonyBombassolo on Feb 29, 2024 2:47:31 GMT
www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/01/italy-camorra-mafia-arrest
Mark Tran
Sun 1 Nov 2009 10.31 EST
Italian police seized another suspected mafia boss today in what the government claimed to be a major victory against organised crime.
Officials say Pasquale Russo, who had been on the run for more than a decade, led one of the most influential and deadly clans of the Camorra, the Naples-based crime syndicate. He was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison for 13 killings and for criminal association with the mafia.
The 62-year-old, along with his brother Carmine, were arrested at dawn in a remote farmhouse near Sperone, 50 miles north of Naples.
Yesterday police arrested another member of the Russo family, Salvatore, at a chicken farm where he had built a hideout. They found him after tearing down a thick wall that looked suspicious.
He had an Uzi machine gun, a Beretta pistol and a shotgun with him at the time, police said. Further searches turned up another pistol and documents related to the gang's operations.
Salvatore said nothing during his arrest, but kicked a journalist while he was being taken from the police station to jail.
The Russo clan had reorganised the Camorra mafia since the 1990s, the authorities said, and exercised total control over illegal activity in about 40 towns in the Naples region.
Roberto Maroni, the interior minister, described the arrests as an "extraordinary success against the mafia and the Camorra", while Angelino Alfano, the justice minister, said the captures dealt an "extremely hard blow" to the gang.
The Naples Camorra – several dozen families affiliated to often feuding clans – is believed to be 5,000-strong.
Last week, a 13-year-old Italian girl learned that her father had been murdered when a video of the killing was sent to her mobile phone, her family said. Mariano Bacioterracino was shot outside a bar in Naples on 11 May in a killing thought to have been organised by the Camorra.
Mark Tran
Sun 1 Nov 2009 10.31 EST
Italian police seized another suspected mafia boss today in what the government claimed to be a major victory against organised crime.
Officials say Pasquale Russo, who had been on the run for more than a decade, led one of the most influential and deadly clans of the Camorra, the Naples-based crime syndicate. He was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison for 13 killings and for criminal association with the mafia.
The 62-year-old, along with his brother Carmine, were arrested at dawn in a remote farmhouse near Sperone, 50 miles north of Naples.
Yesterday police arrested another member of the Russo family, Salvatore, at a chicken farm where he had built a hideout. They found him after tearing down a thick wall that looked suspicious.
He had an Uzi machine gun, a Beretta pistol and a shotgun with him at the time, police said. Further searches turned up another pistol and documents related to the gang's operations.
Salvatore said nothing during his arrest, but kicked a journalist while he was being taken from the police station to jail.
The Russo clan had reorganised the Camorra mafia since the 1990s, the authorities said, and exercised total control over illegal activity in about 40 towns in the Naples region.
Roberto Maroni, the interior minister, described the arrests as an "extraordinary success against the mafia and the Camorra", while Angelino Alfano, the justice minister, said the captures dealt an "extremely hard blow" to the gang.
The Naples Camorra – several dozen families affiliated to often feuding clans – is believed to be 5,000-strong.
Last week, a 13-year-old Italian girl learned that her father had been murdered when a video of the killing was sent to her mobile phone, her family said. Mariano Bacioterracino was shot outside a bar in Naples on 11 May in a killing thought to have been organised by the Camorra.