Casalesi Clan operating in the southern part of Lazio, illegally acquiring numerous commercial activities, mostly car dealers

mafia group, connected to the Casalesi Clan was discovered after two years of investigation by the Roman branch of the Carabinieri. The criminal organisation was operating in the southern part of Lazio, illegally acquiring numerous commercial activities, mostly car dealers, that were gathering enormous patrimonies. 40 arrest warrants were released form people accused of association with the mafia, money laundering, fraud, extortion, falsified invoices, tax evasion worth millions of Euros and fraudulent transfer of goods. Over 500 agents from the Carabinieri were involved in the investigation in the provinces of Rome, Latina, Frosinone and Caserta. Numerous seizures are in progress in different areas of Italy and abroad of goods and businesses controlled by the criminal organisation worth over 80 million Euros.

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Antonino Fortunato Morreale, the suspected "postman" apprehended in Palermo, recently was convicted of Mafia association by a tribunal in Palermo

Two men believed to be the "postmen" who delivered notes to accused Sicilian Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano have been arrested, Italian police said Saturday.One suspect was arrested at his Palermo home Friday evening and the other was picked up at a Rome airport last month, police said.Through them, Provenzano was able to oversee and communicate with a Mafia network that stretched across Sicily, said Col. Jacopo Mannucci Benincasa of the Carabinieri police in Palermo, the Sicilian capital.Provenzano was captured in 2006 after decades on the run and 13 years as the leader of the Sicilian Mafia. He has been convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison for more than a dozen murders of mobsters and investigators.
During his years as a fugitive, Provenzano sent handwritten notes — known as "pizzini" — about the administration of Cosa Nostra. He used codes to conceal business interests and the identities of those he dealt with.Provenzano relied heavily on the "pizzini" and their delivery, investigators say.
Antonino Fortunato Morreale, 40, the suspected "postman" apprehended in Palermo, recently was convicted of Mafia association by a tribunal in Palermo and sentenced to a nine years in prison.The other suspect, Andrea Panno, had eluded capture during a massive anti-Mafia operation in 2005, the Palermo Carabinieri said. He was picked up in June by U.S. officials, who had been alerted by Italian investigators that the fugitive was living in Guilford, Connecticut, with his family, the Carabinieri said.
Panno, 47, arrived in Italy on July 12 and was immediately arrested at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport, police said. He remains in custody in the Italian capital.

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"Scissionisti" clan

The Rome flying squad, working alongside those of Naples, Caserta, Perugia and Macerata, with activities coordinated by the central anti-crime headquarters of state police and the central anti-drugs headquarters, is in the process of arresting a large number of members of a vast criminal organization, made up of Italian and Nigerian citizens involved in international drug trafficking. Two hundred and fifty state police are working in several Italia cities, backed by helicopters and dog units. The operation, name "Black Shoes", led by the Naples anti-mafia district headquarters, has reconstructed the route of drug trafficking from South America to Europe, with traffickers attentive to ever single detail of drug imports. Receivers for the drugs were organizations with links to the Camorra, who then distributed the "goods" across the Italian peninsula. From Suriname and Guyana cocaine and heroin were brought into Italy with Nigerian runners who hid the drugs in false soles of their shoes or swallowed capsules filled with it. The leaders of the organization whose purpose was that of international drug trafficking and which has been dismantled by the Rome flying squad acted in Campania. The 2-year operation, which was collaborated in by the police of the following countries, made it possible to identify the operative cells in Guyana, Suriname, Holland, Romania, India, Pakistan, Uganda, and Ivory Coast. The role played by women whose relatives are involved in the Camorra played an essential role, making it possible to maintain contact between the bosses in prison and their accomplices by way of "pizzini" (small slips of paper) hidden in the seam of clothing and coded with elementary codes to decipher. At the end of lengthy investigations, the Rome flying squad managed to identify the connections between Nigerian traffickers and those at the head of organized crime in the Campania region. Some members of the "Scissionisti" clan supplied themselves with the drugs to then distribute it over the Campania market. Among the crimes with which those arrested are being charged is that of mafia-related criminal association.

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