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Mafia Capitale ringleaders sentenced in Rome

By: Wanted in Rome

Date:

20 Jul, 2017

The ringleaders of the so-called Mafia Capitale case, involving a crime syndicate infiltrating Rome's city hall, were sentenced by a court in the Italian capital on 20 July.

Massimo Carminati, a notorious Roman underworld figure and former right-wing terrorist, was sentenced to 20 years after he was found guilty of being part of an organisation that muscled in on city contracts worth millions.

Judges handed down a 19-year sentence to Carminati's sidekick Salvatore Buzzi, who was caught on wire-tap in 2013 boasting about how much money the mafia creamed off funds for emergency housing for immigrants and camps for Roma people.

The 41 defendants who received prison sentences include Luca Gramazio, a former politician from the Lazio branch of Forza Italia, who was handed an 11-year sentence; the former head of Rome city council Mirko Coratti (Partito Democratico) received six years; and Franco Panzironi, the former boss of Rome's waste collection agency AMA, who got 10 years.

During the trail, which opened in November 2015, mobsters were accused of corrupting dozens of politicians, public officials and business people in return for lucrative municipal contracts in sectors such as waste management, recycling and parks maintenance.

The case was the biggest investigation into organised crime in Rome's modern history.