Foggia police conduct major anti-mafia operation

Rome, January 20 - Hundreds of police officers in Foggia were conducting a major operation on Monday carrying out dozens of sweeping searches for weapons, drugs, and possible fugitives from justice. As part of the operation, police were executing arrest warrants issued by district anti-mafia judges for suspects accused of attempted extortion of local business owners. The Foggia mafia is "emulating" the Calabrian-based 'Ndrangheta mafia in its "expansionistic" goals, and is cultivating a similar 'middle ground' between mafiosi, businessmen, professionals and civil servants as Italy's richest and most powerful mafia, the National Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate (DIA) said in its six-monthly report to parliament Friday. A bomb was set off early on Thursday at a day centre for the elderly in the southern city of Foggia owned by a group that employs a witness in a investigation into the local mafia, sources said. It was the latest in a long series of mafia attacks including turf-war murders by the Foggia mafia, part of the Sacra Corona Unita (SCU, Holy United Crown) mafia in the region of Puglia.