Naples, Nov 30 (IANS/AKI) Italy's anti-mafia police on Monday arrested 43 people in the southern Campania region for alleged extortion, drugs trafficking, assault, and illegal arms possession.
Police made the arrests during raids in the towns of Pozzuoli and Giugliano in the Naples area in an operation that targeted the Naples mafia or Camorra's Longobari-Beneduce clan.
The suspects are alleged bosses and associates of the clan, whose rackets included extorting money from illegal parking attendants who earn a few coins by helping motorists park, police said.
Pozzuoli's Mayor Vincenzo Figliolia, praised Tuesday's arrests, saying the city and its businesses had been "liberated".
"Pozzuoli's business people and shopkeepers have been liberated from the new recruits to this Camorra clan, which will be smashed to smithereens," he said.
"Whoever tries to drag our city back in time, will not succeed," Figliolia said, urging citizens and law-enforcement agencies not to lower their guard against the crime syndicate.
The ruthless workings of the Camorra, one of Italy's oldest and most violent mafias, were laid bare by Roberto Saviano's best-selling book "Gomorrah" and the by award-winning film of the same name.
The Camorra's main sources of revenue include drug trafficking, extortion, arms trading, prostitution and waste disposal.
--IANS/AKI
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