I just heard about this from someone overseas. I hadn't seen a lot of US coverage on it. To put troops in the streets would seem to indicate a serious problem. Evidently there were also riots in response to the murders.http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hPa_0yi_e0odHKa_UNBz9Z7LmgVwSome 30 new arrests in crackdown on Naples mafia
5 hours ago
CASERTA, Italy (AFP) — Police made nearly 30 new arrests in the Naples area Tuesday as part of a crackdown on the Camorra mafia following the killings of an Italian businessman and six African immigrants.
"The war against the Camorra will continue until it is won," said Interior Minister Roberto Maroni as he announced 29 arrests at a televised news conference, referring to the local mafia in and around the southern port city.
Investigators were acting on 107 arrest warrants issued by Naples prosecutors, the largest since the massive Spartacus operation of 1998 that led to life sentences for 16 clan members, police investigator Rodolfo Ruperti told AFP.
About 70 of the warrants fingered suspects who are already awaiting trial or serving time in other cases, he said, adding that another 26 had been arrested.
The suspects are accused of criminal association, extortion and homicide, Ruperti told AFP.
Police announced the separate arrests of three suspects in the September 18 killings of six Africans and an Italian in the Naples area, but said later that one was not implicated.
Two more suspects in the shootings who remain at large are "heavily armed and very determined not to be captured," Italian police commissioner Antonio Manganelli told the ANSA news agency.
A first suspect in the carnage, among the worst in recent years in Italy, was arrested on September 22.
In the shootings, whose motives remain unclear, the Italian owner of a local recreation hall was killed along with three Ghanaians, two Liberians and a Togolese.
Tuesday's arrests were "the state's first big response to this war declared by the Camorra," Moroni said.
The government approved a three-month deployment of nearly 500 soldiers to help police fight the mafia in the region after some 400 police reinforcements arrived in the area on September 22.
Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa said paratroopers would set up two checkpoints in the main street of Castel Volturno, where the African victims were killed, from Wednesday.
The bulk of the soldiers will deploy later in the week, according to Maroni.
Investigators thought the September 18 killings may have been part of a turf battle in the region's drug trafficking involving many Africans -- though none of the victims was linked to the trade.
The Casalesi clan is blamed for dozens of deaths over the past three decades.
Those arrested included 48-year-old Giuseppina Nappa, the wife of clan leader Francesco "Sandokan" Schiavone, 55, who has been in prison since 1998 and is serving a life term, Ruperti said.
Nappa is accused of receiving monthly stipends the mafia pays the families of jailed members.
Investigators were meanwhile seizing assets and commercial enterprises worth 100 million euros (140 million dollars) belonging to suspected clan members in Caserta, Rome and the central Tuscany region, reports said.
The fight against the Camorra "is being won in terms of assets," Maroni said on a talk show earlier Tuesday. The assets "are not theirs but they ... belong to the citizens."
Confiscating the assets "gives a strong signal to all that crime doesn't pay," said Maroni, who last week said the Camorra had "declared a civil war on the state."
