A jailed former boss in the
notorious Rome criminal organisation the Magliana Gang was among
38 people served arrest warrants in Italy, Spain and Austria
Tuesday on charges of murder, racketeering and other
gang-related offences.
Sicilian-born Salvatore Nicitra, 68, who has been in jail for
two years for other mafia crimes, had taken over gambling
operations in northern Rome by using mafia methods over the
years since the Gang was busted, police said.
Police also said they had solved five cold cases, a four
murders and an attempted murder, dating back to the 1980s with
the operation.
In Italy, the arrests too place in Rome, Viterbo, Terni,
Padua and Lecce.
"I'm a boss, I'll put the gambling machines and slot machines
wherever I want," Nicitra was caught saying in a police
intercept.
Police said Nicitra was "the king of Roma Nord".
In 1993, while Nictra was in jail on mafia charges, his
brother and 11-year-old son disappeared without trace.
Their bodies have never been found.
In the operation, police also seized property worth some 15
million euros.
Nicitra was said to be a top aide to Magliana Gang kingpin
and drug trafficker Enrico De Pedis aka Renatino, handling the
gang's illegal gambling operations.
"I had the most important gambling dens in Rome and the whole
of Italy," he was also caught saying.
"You used to have to lower your head when you talked to me".
Carabinieri said: "Nicitra's criminal charisma was recognised
and respected by all".
Prosecutor Michele Prestipino said Nicitra "has always been a
key man in the dynamics of the Rome gang scene".
The Magliana Gang was an infamous and extremely violent Rome
group of the 1970s that was the subject of Michele Placido's
2005 movie Romanzo Criminale and a spin-off TV series of the
same name.
Names after the Rome district where it was set up, the
magliana Gang had links to Italy's three main mafias
'Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra and Camorra and has also been linked to
rightist terrorist bombings and murders to destabilise Italy in
the 'Years of Lead' of leftist and rightist terror in the 1970s
and 80s.
Conspiracy theorists have also linked it to other murky
crimes including the killing of mud-raking journalist Mino
Pecorelli, the killing of God's Banker Roberto Calvi, and the
disappearance of a 15-year-old Vatican resident, Emanuela
Orelandi.
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