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Italian entrepreneur arrested for allegedly assisting fugitive mafia boss

Xinhua, March 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

Italian police on Tuesday arrested an entrepreneur for allegedly helping a major fugitive mafia boss, local media reported.

Raffaele Cilindro, 51, was arrested in the southern province of Caserta near Naples, and charged with mafia association, according to ANSA news agency.

The authorities seized assets worth some 1.5 million euros (1.59 million U.S. dollars) from the businessman in the operation ordered by Anti-Mafia District Directorate (DDA) prosecutors in Naples.

The suspect is thought to have links with the Casalesi clan, which is considered the most powerful group inside the Naples-based Camorra syndicate.

The businessman is suspected to have hosted the fugitive boss Michele Zagaria in his home in the past, as well as helped him run the businesses of the Casalesi clan, which largely deals in drug trafficking and illegal construction activities.

Michele Zagaria, long considered a major boss within the Camorra, was captured in 2011 near Naples after being on the run for 16 years. He had been sentenced to three life sentences in absentia.

The arrested entrepreneur's company is currently involved in the reconstruction of L'Aquila, a city struck by a major earthquake in 2009, local media highlighted as the most troubling aspect of the investigation.

Corruption and mafia infiltration have deeply contaminated L'Aquila's reconstruction efforts, according to a report by National Anti-mafia Prosecutor Franco Roberti released in February. Enditem