Caltanissetta (Italy), Feb 26 (IANS/AKI) Police in Sicily on Friday impounded assets worth 3 million euros (approx $3.28 mn) from a businessman with alleged links to a prominent mafia boss.
The assets included a quarry, company shares, bank accounts, real estate and vehicles.
The 56-year-old quarry-owner, Francesco Antonio Cammarata, from the town of Gela, had close ties to local mafia boss Giuseppe Piddu Madonia, according to investigators and allegedly laundered "huge" sums of money for the Madonia clan through a fraudulent system of over-billing.
In exchange, the mafia clan used intimidation to ensure Cammarata a dominant market position in the supply to local building firms of aggregates (crushed stone or gravel) and their transportation, police said.
Earlier this week, anti-mafia prosecutors in the province of Catania on Tuesday froze over 1.5 billion euros of stocks and shares in three building firms belonging to the Costanzo Bosco Lo Giudice group and put them under special administration.
On Monday, anti-mafia police impounded seven million euros of property from the Sicilian mafia's Nardo clan in the province of Syracuse including construction, steel-making and solar energy companies, as well as a luxury villa and financial assets.
