Italy snares Black Widow’s Mafia group

Rome, Feb. 9: Italian authorities said on Tuesday they had dismantled a mafia business group belonging to a clan headed by a woman known as the “Black Widow of the Camorra” and captured another leading figure in the Naples underworld.

Alessandro Giannelli, the fugitive boss of an increasingly influential Camorra clan which bears his name, was captured by the police at dawn as he changed cars in an attempt to escape from the southern city, the police said.

Giannelli, 38, has been implicated in a deadly turf war linked to the drugs trade which has claimed 10 lives in the Naples region since the start of the year and has resulted in the interior ministry considering sending in extra troops to try and stem the killing.

Separately, prosecutors in Rome said they had dismantled a business group with extensive interests in the fruit, vegetable and dairy sectors which was effectively a front for one of the longest- established and most influential Camorra clans, the Moccia.

Based in Afragola, a small town on the outskirts of Naples, the clan has been headed since the 1970s by matriarch Anna Mazza, the first woman to be convicted in Italy of Mafia association.

The so- called “Black Widow” took over after the killing of her husband Gennaro Moccia and went on to considerably expand the scope of the clan’s activities and its influence.

Luigi Moccia, reportedly the current business brains of the organisation, was one of five people placed in custody after Tuesday’s dawn raids.