Italian police arrest suspected mobsters in bid to thwart Covid-19 exploitation

While loan-sharking is still an activity of organised crime in Italy, increasingly mobsters have sought to buy up hotels, restaurants, pharmacies, car dealerships and other businesses for years now.

Italy has been hard hit by the coronavirus and the Mafia were not slow to try and exploit the situation.

Italian police have arrested 91 suspected mobsters in a probe into money laundering and extortion in a bid to thwart Sicily’s Cosa Nostra from exploiting economic woes triggered by the pandemic.

Hundreds of Financial Guard police officers fanned out early on Tuesday through Palermo, the alleged crime clans’ power base, as well as in several regions in northern Italy.