Italian govt takes over city to save it from Mafia

The Italian government has dissolved the city council of Reggio Calabria and taken over control of the southern city for fear the Mafia has infiltrated public utilities, investigators said on Wednesday. Eight people including seven suspected gangsters from the Fontana clan of the 'Ndrangheta mafia and the head of the local waste disposal company, Leonia, a public-private partnership controlled by the council, have been arrested. Interior Minister Annamaria Cancellieri announced the move on Tuesday, saying it was the first of its kind for a regional capital. An overnight cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mario Monti approved the decision. "It's a preventative act and not a punishment," Cancellieri said, adding: "This was a painful decision carried out in the interests of the city." The local magistrate said public-private partnerships in utilities were "the new frontier for ties between mafia clans and economic and social fabric." City contracts were "a cash reserve" for the mafia, the magistrate said. Cancellieri said Reggio Calabria would be run for the next 18 months by Vincenzo Panico, the government-appointed prefect of nearby Crotone. The 'Ndrangheta, which is based in the Calabria region, is an international crime syndicate with a turnover of billions of euros (dollars) a year. It is particularly notorious for drug trafficking and corrupt construction contracts. The group has proven particularly difficult to investigate because it is based almost exclusively on family ties and it has flourished even as the Naples Camorra and the Sicilian Mafia have come under pressure from police. Also on Wednesday, police arrested 22 people in an anti-'Ndrangheta operation in the Lombardy region in northern Italy. Among those arrested was Domenico Zambetti, a regional councillor accused of paying the 'Ndrangheta 200,000 euros ($257,000) in cash to obtain 4,000 votes.