Italy: 10 arrests made in probe of mob-controlled cemetery

ROME — Italian police have arrested 10 people while investigating the alleged control by mobsters of a cemetery in northern Italy.

State police on Tuesday alleged that two clans of the ’ndrangheta crime syndicate determined which firms were allowed to perform burials or construction work like erecting mausoleums at the cemetery in Modena, a town in the affluent region of Emilia-Romagna.

The ‘ndrangheta syndicate is based in southern Italy and awash in cocaine trafficking proceeds. But mobsters have increasingly infiltrated Italy’s productive north in search of more revenue and legitimate businesses to use as fronts for laundering money.

In 2018, a regional court convicted 125 people who were suspected ’ndrangheta members or associates on charges of Mafia association and colluding with mobsters.

The information leading to Tuesday’s arrests came from intercepted phone conversations and from turncoat mobsters, Italian news reports said.

The Associated Press

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