ROME, July 26 (Reuters) – A clan of Calabrian mafia swindlers in southern Italy staged hundreds of fake car crashes every year to collect millions of euros in insurance payouts to purchase drugs and weapons, police said on Friday.
The cash-for-crash hoax was just one of the charges against 70 alleged criminals targeted for arrest in dawn raids by police on Friday in the Calabrian city of Lamezia Terme, near the “toe” of Italy.
Giuseppe Giampa, the suspected super boss of the clan used the scam cash to buy guns and drugs, and to pay his men,” Rodolfo Ruperti, head of the police squad that carried out the investigation, told Reuters
Giampa also allegedly extorted protection payments from businesses and sold the clan’s votes to the highest bidder in a 2010 mayoral vote.read the rest Reuters.com
