FBIS3-41398
"jptdd008__l94106"
JPRS-TDD-94-008-L
Document Type:JPRS
Document Title:Narcotics
23 February 1994
WEST EUROPE
ITALY
Fifty Mafiosi Arrested for Drug Trafficking
BR1702125694 Rome ANSAMAIL Database in English 1719 GMT 16
Feb 94
BR1702125694
Rome ANSAMAIL Database
Language: English
Article Type:BFN
[Unattributed article: "Mafia Drug Roundup in Milan and
Palermo"]
[Text] Milan, 16 Feb (ANSA) -- Fifty people were in jail
this afternoon after a police launched a major roundup in Milan
and Palermo of Sicilian and Calabrian crime figures in the
international drug trade early this morning.
Milan Chief Prosecutor Francesco Saverio Borrelli and Milan
police chief Achille Serra said the operation, which they were
calling Costanza, had identified the key underworld figures
responsible for several hundred kilos worth of cocaine traffic
last year.
Milanese investigators were able to trace the ties between
the Palermo Mafia and Calabrian 'Ndrangheta and their Colombian
partners in Medellin, arresting nine persons in Palermo and 41
around Milan. Twenty-nine persons already in jail on other
charges were served further warrants while about 30 persons
under indictment escaped capture this morning.
Among those arrested in Milan, Serra said, were members of
some of Italy's top crime clans, including Salvatore Enea,
Guglielmo and Stefano Fidanzati and Rocco and Antonio Papalia.
He said they shipped cocaine from Colombia to Spain, then
brought the drug into Italy by automobile.
The group also imported cocaine via Amsterdam, using
couriers
who carried the drug in plastic capsules they swallowed, as well
as heroin from Turkey.
"Clean Hands is not the only investigation underway in
Milan," said prosecutor Borrelli, adding that his office was
strongly committed to battling organized crime. The office of
the district anti-Mafia prosecutor was recently strengthened for
just that reason, he said.
Police in Milan discovered the cocaine ring in 1992, after
they searched a neo-Nazi headquarters in the Lombard capital and
discovered that the brother of one of the members of that far
right group was working as a drug courier from Amsterdam. The
investigation, headed by Milan assistant prosecutor Armando
Spataro, relied on the cooperation of several veteran Mafia
informers, along with an "independent" drug trader who supplied
information while maintaining contacts with the Mafia.