Raids in Brazil Italian police succeed in massive blow against Cosa Nostra
14.08.2024, 02:45 Listen to article
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For years, the Italian financial police investigated the Cosa Nostra network, then struck in Brazil. The investigators seized assets worth 50 million euros and arrested a suspect who is said to have laundered mafia money for decades as a front man.
The Italian financial police say they have managed to deal a significant blow to the mafia in Brazil. According to the financial police, police officers from the Sicilian regional command, in cooperation with Brazilian colleagues, seized assets worth 50 million euros in a large-scale operation in the northeastern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte. In addition, numerous properties in Italy and Switzerland were searched.
A businessman from Sicily based in the Brazilian city of Natal has been arrested. He is said to have helped the mafia branch Cosa Nostra launder money by investing in Brazilian companies since 2000, reports the Italian news agency “Agenzia Nova”. The front man, whose identity the police did not disclose, is said to have been in contact with one of the “most influential men of honor in Palermo” since 2000, the authority said, using a term for high-ranking mafiosi. According to Sicilian local media, he is said to be mafia boss Giuseppe Calvaruso, who was arrested in 2021 and sentenced to a long prison term in 2022.
According to the financial police, police in Brazil confiscated assets from 17 people. They are accused of aiding and abetting the formation of a mafia organization, extortion and money laundering. The raid was preceded by years of investigations. Over 100 officers from the Italian financial police were involved in the raids, some of whom had traveled to Brazil in recent days to support their colleagues there.
During the raids against the mafia, properties in several Italian regions and in Switzerland were also searched, the police said. According to the European judicial authority Eurojust, Swiss authorities are cooperating in the cross-border operation.
