Europe News

Top mobster nabbed in Italy

Apr 23, 2011, 8:01 GMT

Rome - Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni hailed the arrest Saturday of the alleged kingpin of the Sacra Corona Unita, one of the country's four powerful mafia organizations.

Francesco Campana, 38, was nabbed in a home in Oria, near the south-eastern city of Brindisi, after a two-year investigation.

Police had struck 'very strong blow' against the Sacra Corona Unita, Maroni said.

He noted how the arrest had been carried out by special units created to hunt down fugitive mobsters in the southern region of Apulia where the Sacra Corona Unita is mostly active.

Campana's 45-year-old girlfriend was with him at the time of the arrest, as was the home's owner. Both were facing charges of abetting Campana who had been on the run since 2009, investigators said.

Campana, who has been sentenced to nine years in prison for mafia association, moved about constantly in a bid to avoid being caught, the investigators said.

Describing Campana as 'cultured and intelligent,' anti-mafia magistrate Cataldo Motta said that during a previous stint in prison, the mafia boss had written letters quoting Roman Latin author, Seneca.

The Sacra Corona Unita runs drug trafficking and arms smuggling operations in Apulia including the cities of Brindisi and Lecce and is said to have close links with Russian, Albanian, Colombian and Asian mafias.

Italy's other major organized crime networks are Cosa Nostra, in Sicily; the Camorra, in the Campania region around Naples; and 'Ndrangheta, which is active in Calabria, the region that forms the tip of Italy's boot.

Read more about Italy Crime