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.