Calabrian mayor among 41 arrested in anti-mafia crackdown

ROME-- Italian police arrested 41 people in a major crackdown on the ‘Ndrangheta mafia in Calabria on Wednesday, including a local mayor and an alleged mafia boss whose wife was killed in an ambush four days earlier, police said.

  The Carabinieri’s Special Operations Group and officers from Cosenza carried out the arrests following court order at the request of anti-mafia prosecutors.

  Among those placed under house arrest were Flavio Stasi, mayor of Corigliano-Rossano, and opposition councilor Pietro Lucisano, under a custody order issued by a preliminary investigations judge in Catanzaro.

  Stasi is suspected of involvement in an alleged arrangement to secure votes for his re-election in June 2024 in exchange for promises of municipal jobs, according to court documents.

  Also arrested was Damiano Pepe, whom investigators identify as a senior figure in the Abruzzese-Pepe mafia clan in Cassano all’Ionio. Pepe remains in hospital in Cosenza after the ambush on Oct.24 that claimed the life of his wife, Silvana Sibarelli.

  The Catanzaro District Anti-Mafia Directorate said in a statement issued Wednesday that the investigation concerns alleged mafia association, murder, extortion, illegal immigration arrangements and political-mafia electoral corruption.