Italian police smash drug ring after disco shutdown

Italian police on Tuesday arrested several people on drug charges across central Italy, days after authorities ordered the temporary closure of a disco following the death of a teenager for drug abuse.

Rome-based Il Messaggero newspaper said police also seized narcotics earmarked for clubs and discos used by holiday makers in the sea resorts of central Italy.

In particular, a group of smugglers arrested in Lazio region and nearby Abruzzo were providing cocaine every week to very young people, according to local media.

Tuesday's arrests came amid debate which followed the shutdown for four months ordered by local authorities of a famous disco in Riccione, a town on Italy's Adriatic coast, where a teenager took a fatal dose of a drug and lost his life.

Local investigators said the 16-year-old had bought the drug, named Ecstasy, days before his death on July 19 in order to take it at the Cocorico disco which "represented the perfect place to have it."

The teenager, Lamberto Lucaccioni, reportedly collapsed while dancing at the disco with his friends.

Months ago a 32-year-old man was found dead at a hotel after taking drugs at the same disco.

The Cocorico owners said they will appeal to judicial authorities against the shutdown.

"In fact more than a temporary shutdown, it is a conclusive shutdown, as closing for 120 days means going bankrupt," one of them, Fabrizio De Meis, told a press conference in Rome.

"By closing the disco, authorities will not solve the problem ... while some 200 people will suddenly find themselves without a job," De Meis went on saying calling on the government to adopt different measures to fight drug abuse.

In an interview with Italy's largest circulation newspaper Corriere della Sera published on Tuesday, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano stressed that the government has "the duty to be tough."

"We believe that the entertainment sector can be protected only by keeping pushers and drugs far away and telling youngsters that they can have fun until the early morning without any need to take drugs or be drunk," he stressed.

"We will have zero tolerance ... we cannot just stand still while we look at our young generations destroying their brain and risking their life," Alfano went on saying underlining that drug smuggling in Italy is against the law.

The interior minister announced stricter controls and measures as well as new possible closures, and called on Italian citizens and especially families to collaborate in the fight against what he called the "hoot which kills people." Endit