ITALY’S four main Mafia organizations are believed to have put aside their deadly differences to form a new and dangerous ”fifth mafia” in Rome.
The impoverished south has been the traditional power base for the four big crime syndicates – Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, the Camorra from Campania, the ‘Ndragheta of Calabria and the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia.
Mafiosi are now targeting Rome and the surrounding region of Lazio, according to a study by Libera Informazione, an independent body that monitors Mafia activities.
”This ‘New Mafia’ is more business-oriented and its members put aside their differences and their different origins to accumulate wealth by working together without stepping on each others feet,” the report said.
Rather than collecting protection money from restaurants, shops and businesses, as they do in southern cities, Mafia gangsters are laundering the proceeds of crime by buying into legitimate enterprises.
Godfathers have struck up alliances with Chinese, Russian, Albanian and Romanian organized criminals operating in Rome.
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