200 officers hunt mafia hit men

ITALY is to send nearly 200 police reinforcements to the southern region of Puglia as the government warned of a “very tough” response to the murder of four people in a suspected mafia feud.

The killings have shone a spotlight on a ruthless organised crime network that is far less known than the country’s more notorious mafias – the Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the Camorra in Naples and the ’Ndràngheta of Calabria.

In Wednesday’s apparent mob hit, gunmen pulled alongside a VW Beetle and shot dead Mario Luciano Romito, an alleged mafia boss, and Matteo De Palma, his brother-in-law.

They then chased down two brothers in a pickup truck who had witnessed the attack and shot them dead too. “The response of the state relating to the murder of innocent passers-by will be very tough,” said Marco Minniti, the interior minister.

In a war that has largely gone unnoticed by the rest of the country, 35 people have been murdered in the rugged Gargano peninsula in the north of Puglia since the start of last year.