Italian police on Friday arrested 15
people in a probe into a Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia operation
that allegedly muscled in on rail contracting work across Italy,
judicial sources said.
Network rail company RFI is the injured party in the case,
police said.
Police said the giants of Italian rail construction and
maintenance were involved and the infiltrated projects were in
the following regions: Lombardy, Veneto, Abruzzo, Lazio,
Campania, Calabria and Sicily.
The 'Ndrangheta gang allegedly made fake hires to benefit
members in jail, paying them 2,000 euros a month, police said.
They also hired workers for rail work who were completely
incompetent, police said.
"There was a blatant plan to divvy up rail construction and
maintenance work," said police.
Among those probed in the case is businesswoman Maria Antonietta
Ventura, president of the Ventura Group that is a leader in the
rail construction sector.
'Ndrangheta is Italy's richest and most powerful mafia and
controls much of the European cocaine trade.
It has supplanted Sicily's Cosa Nostra as the most dangerous
organised crime group, officials say.
The other main mafia is the Camorra in Naples.
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