Italy plans to crack down on the production and sale of counterfeit shoes, bags, clothes and other items in and around the country’s beaches, which provide up to US$26 billion in annual turnover for organized criminal groups, The Local reported Monday.

A villa seized from a Camorra Mafia boss near Naples will be converted into a shelter for LGBT Italians and migrants fleeing violent discrimination, The Localreported Wednesday.

A judge sent the brother of a jailed mafia boss behind bars for six years for beating a reporter and his cameraman during a television interview, ANSA reported on Monday.

Italian police arrested 102 suspects on Monday after a 12-year investigation into mafia families that allegedly rule Puglia region on Italy’s southeast coast and are responsible for large-scale drug trafficking from the Balkans.

One day after the Pope visited a suburb of Rome to tell its inhabitants to speak up against the mafia, three people were arrested for running an extortion racket, ANSA and Repubblica reported Monday.

Italian authorities seizedover 20 million euros inassets from a group accused of managing an illegal online gambling business on behalf of the ‘Ndrangheta, police announced on Thursday.

Sicilian authorities that have been fighting the Cosa Nostra for decades are facing a new type of organized crime: a Nigerian sex and drug trafficking gang called Black Axe, NPR reported Wednesday.

An Italian supreme court ruled that the former mayor of Siderno can be considered a member of the Calabrian mafia and sentenced him to 12 years in prison for mafia association, Il Fatto Quotidiano reported Monday.

An Italian businessman who was exposed for his connections to the ‘Ndrangheta mafia and initially held for the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak will be extradited to Italy for drug trafficking, Il Fatto Quotidiano reported Friday.

Italian police announced on Thursday that they arrested 22 close associates of the boss of all bosses of the Sicilian mafia, who has been on the run since 1993 but still kept issuing orders on paper notes, or “pizzini,” some of which were hidden under a rock.

A South-Sicilian clan of the Cosa Nostra planned to use dynamite to kill journalist Paolo Borrometi, who has been investigating the mafia for years, ANSA reported Tuesday.

Italian police arrested on Friday one of the most well-known ‘Ndrangheta bosses in an isolated hut in a village in southern Calabria. Giuseppe Pelle has been wanted since 2016 when he received a 2.5-year prison sentence for attempted extortion and being associated to organized crime.

In the heart of Calabrian mafia country, a farmer cooperative was damaged for the fourth time in the past year, reported il Fatto Quotidiano on Wednesday. But the farmers say they will bow down to no one - not even the ‘Ndrangheta.

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was indicted in Milan on Monday of allegedly paying witnesses to lie in front of judges during his sex-for-hire trial, according to the Associated Press.

A corruption trial of Royal Dutch Shell and Eni executives that was to start on Monday was postponed by the court in Milan until May 14, according to Reuters.

By Cecilia Anesi

Italian authorities detained a member of the Camorra crime syndicate who landed in Rome on Wednesday after having been expelled from Mexico where he lived for more than a decade under a false name.

In the largest operation of the last 23 years against the 'Ndrangheta, authorities in Italy and Germany have since Monday evening arrested 170 people affiliated with the criminal organization’s Farao-Marincola clan of the Calabrian Crotone area.

She was called the “Mistress”.

Police in Palermo, Sicily, arrested on Tuesday 27 members of a Cosa Nostra clan suspected of extortion, drug trafficking and illegal gambling. The years-long investigation that led to the arrests gave authorities a deeper understanding of the clan’s hierarchy and election system.

It’s hard for anyone to leave Italy’s secretive, clannish ‘Ndrangheta crime families. For women, doubly so.

Dockworkers in Abidjan’s port, Ivory Coast. (Photo: Romain Seaf)