Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi travelled yesterday to the home turf of the ruthless 'Ndrangheta Mafia to announce a new drive to rid Italy of the "terrible scourge" of organised crime.
"The Mafia - the 'Ndrangheta and the other organisations - are a terrible scourge for our country," Mr Berlusconi said as he unveiled a 10-point campaign to fight them.
The 'Ndrangheta, heavily invol-ved in drug trafficking, is considered the most powerful of Italy's four organised crime syndicates, with an estimated annual turnover of €44 billion.
The organisation shot to international notoriety in 2007 with a gangland-style shooting outside a pizza restaurant in Duisburg, Germany, a settling of scores that left seven clan members dead.
Total turnover in 2009 for the four Mafias - which also include the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra, the Camorra in the southern Naples region and Sacra Corona Unita in the Apulia region - was €135 billion, an association of small businesses, Confesercenti, said this week.
The figure was an increase of five billion euros over 2008, prompting the group to say in its annual report that the Mafia was impervious to the global financial crisis.
Mr Berlusconi told a news conference here: "We have adopted a 10-point plan which includes, among other things, a code of anti-Mafia laws and the establishment of a national agency that will manage property seized from criminals."
The agency will be headquartered in Reggio Calabria, he said.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the new agency would start work in two weeks, cataloguing the property and speeding the handover of land and other assets to cooperatives.
One co-operative has converted a farmhouse near Corleone, Sicily, previously belonging to jailed Mafia supremo Totò Riina into a bed and breakfast that will open its doors to paying customers later this year.
"One of the main weapons in the fight against the Mafia is the seizure of assets," Mr Maroni said, adding that authorities had seized some nine billion euros worth of property in the last 18 months.
The plan also calls for a new law that will group together all existing legislation in the fight against organised crime and the development of a national map of criminal networks, Mr Maroni said.
Yesterday's announcement came less than four weeks after the 'Ndrangheta was blamed for a bomb attack on the prosecutor's office in Reggio Calabria in what was seen as a Sicilian Mafia-style warning.
A number of legal rulings involving the 'Ndrangheta are expected this year, including the seizure of 60 million euros' worth of assets and an appeal verdict on the Duisburg massacre.