Police said Thursday 44 people,
including many former city officials were arrested in the
Abruzzo, Lazio and Sicily regions in connection with a new
chapter in the Rome city mafia case.
Investigators say the suspects profiteered on migrant
reception centers.
Arrests were made in the provinces of Rome, Rieti,
Frosinone, L'Aquila, Catania and Enna, police said.
Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino said he welcomes the probe and
has no plans to resign over the latest wave of arrests.
"We are changing everything," Marino said.
Among those arrested was Luca Gramazio, the ex-leader of
former premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) caucus in
the Lazio regional assembly.
Investigators say a total of 98,000 euros were paid to
organizations controlled by Gramazio, who allegedly acted as a
link between officials and organized crime.
Also arrested were former Rome council assembly
president Mirko Coratti, who is from the center-left Democratic
Party (PD) of Premier Matteo Renzi, as well as former city
councillors Massimo Caprari, Daniele Ozzimo, and Giordano
Tredicine, and Ostia city councillor Andrea Tassone.
Coratti stepped down in November last year after being
placed under investigation along with some 100 others in the
probe into an alleged mafia organisation that prosecutors said
rigged public contracts in Rome.
The crime syndicate allegedly led by former rightwing
terrorist and gangster Massimo Carminati - who is behind bars -
allegedly was made up of businessmen, politicians, and
high-level officials, including former center-right mayor Gianni
Alemanno.
The Carabinieri police's ROS unit, which fights organized
crime, said that 21 suspects were still at large.
Carminati and his suspected right-hand man Salvatore Buzzi
- whom prosecutors say acted as a go-between, connecting the
gangster with the politicians - were arrested last year in a
sweep that netted more than three dozen suspects in the
so-called Mafia Capitale case.
A Rome court on Monday granted a prosecutor's request that
34 people implicated in the probe - including Carminati - be
sent to an "immediate trial" beginning November 5.
Also on Thursday Nunzio Galantino, the secretary general of
Italian bishops conference CEI, blasted the plundering of money
destined for migrants that has emerged from the latest chapter
in the Rome mafia probe.
"When people see migrants only as poor people to exploit,
numbers to make money from and use for their own purposes, this
is not only a sin, it is 50,000 times a sin," Galantino said on
the so-called Mafia Capitale probe.
"It is a also a gesture of incivility".
Premier Matteo Renzi also weighed in on the issue.
"A solid country fights corruption...and sends thieves to
prison, as Italy is doing now," he said.
"There is a presumption of innocence, but when the final
verdict is handed down whoever broke the rules must pay, to the
last day and the last cent".
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