"Italy Seizes $1.7b in Mafia-Linked Property"

From the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Nov. 27:

Italian authorities have seized €1.5 billion ($US 1.7 billion) in assets from the heirs of a late businessman who had allegedly built his wealth on funds provided by Sicily’s notorious Cosa Nostra organized crime group, the country’s Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate (DIA) announced Saturday.

The properties included over 200 buildings, a yacht, three resorts, 25 companies, and a golf club in Rome, all linked to the tourism and electronics empire of Carmelo Patti.

Investigators say Patti, who died in January 2016, grew his businesses with money provided by a Sicilian mafia family headed by Matteo Messina Denaro, who has been on the run since 1998 and has been given a life sentence in absentia for murder....MORE