Rome, Dec.19.– Police arrested more than 300 people on Thursday in the biggest operation against the Italian mafia since a crackdown on Sicily’s Cosa Nostra 30 years ago.
Night-time raids were conducted by 2,500 paramilitary police officers, some of them equipped with night-vision goggles, as well as soldiers from the army’s parachute regiment and elite helicopter-borne tactical units.
The coordinated raids targeted the feared ‘Ndrangheta mafia from Calabria, the southern region that forms the toe of the Italian boot.
Police said they had dismantled a sophisticated criminal web that linked Mafiosi with politicians, lawyers, accountants and Freemasons.
In one of the properties that was raided they found a scrap of paper with details of the secret blood oath which new members ...
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