ROME - A joint investigation by four separate prosecutors’ offices, in Rome, Naples, Catanzaro and Reggio Calabria, has led to the arrest of 56 people, with 15 others held for questioning, for involvement in a mafia operation concerned with tax fraud and money laundering in the petroleum industry.

  The investigation was carried out by the Guardia di Finanza’s Central Organised Crime Investigation Service (SCICO) and the Carabinieri’s Special Operations Unit (ROS), in coordination with the national and regional antimafia directives. Over the course of the investigation a total of one billion euros in property and cash were sequestered, including two suitcases holding a million euros each.

  The singer Anna Bettozzi (better known by her stage name Ana Bettz), was one of those arrested, for her association with the Camorra and involvement in money laundering, through the use of 20 paper companies, whose sales were found to purely exist on paper. Bettozzi, 62, is the widow and heir of the Roman petrol magnate Sergio Di Cesare.

  The traffic of hydrocarbons and connected fiscal fraud has become the latest mafia venture, with both the Camorra and ‘ndrangheta becoming involved in the sector thanks to the willingness of the business owners, such as the likes of Anna Bettozzi.

  The Rome prosecutor said in an online press conference, “the activity of the investigation has shown has the relationship between the mafia and business owners develops. This was a truly unusual and particular investigation that put the investigative intelligence of four different judicial offices together. The Roman part of the investigation was very entwined with that of Napoli and concerned the operations of an important business group, rooted for many years in the capital, that has had a heavy presence in the sector of the commercialisation of petrol products. Following the affairs of this group, the presence, not so hidden, of people linked to important clans of the Camorra.”

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