Italian police fear mob war as three die in Naples

The bullet-ridden bodies of three men were found in a car in Naples yesterday, as police and government chiefs held emergency meetings over how to combat a mob turf battle in the southern Italian city.

"There's a war underway," said General Vincenzo Giuliani, provincial commander of the Carabinieri police in Naples after visiting the murder scene.

The dead men have not yet been identified, but local media said the corpses showed signs of torture and speculated they were the latest victims of a struggle for control a multi-billion dollar trade in drugs, arms and prostitution.

The car was found close to the site of a weekend suspected hit by the Naples version of the Mafia - the Camorra - which killed a 25-year-old man and wounded five people.

Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu called a crisis meeting of his top staff yesterday to discuss the crime wave. Police chiefs warned the situation risked getting out of control.

"Believe me, it always seems like nothing is enough to solve Naples' problems," the head of Naples police, Franco Malvano, said in an interview with La Stampa newspaper yesterday. There is scant cooperation (from the locals) because unfortunately a widespread, delinquent culture has taken root. It's difficult to wipe out," he added.

With more than 230 murders linked to organised crime between 1999 and 2003, the Mediterranean port city has earned the dubious distinction as Italy's homicide capital.

The Camorra is believed to be highly splintered and unstable, with small rival clans fighting for dominance in the narrow alleyways of Naples' poorest quarters and the sprawling, lawless suburbs.

The prize for success is great, with police estimating that the Camorra will make some four billion euros this year from extortion rackets alone - more than that made by any of Italy's other three top Mafia groups, the 'Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra and the United Holy Rosary.

Naples is also plagued by petty crime and an unemployment rate of nearly 25 per cent at the provincial level.

Besides the Naples violence, Mr Pisanu and other officials also discussed crime in the capital Rome and financial centre Milan. Over the weekend, around 200 people in Rome looted a major supermarket and swiped books from an upmarket shop, in what organisers called a "proletarian expropriation".