Europe, Mafia | featured news

If the papal conclave were set up like college basketball's March Madness, Cardinal Angelo Scola would have been the overall No. 1 seed — perhaps until today. He is the archbishop of Milan and has long been seen as a safe pick for the next pope, having won favor among American cardinals and a handful of influential European ones. So what stands in his way? Well, there's that pesky anti-mafia investigation he has to deal with. The Guardian's John Hooper and Lizzie Davies report today that anti-mafia detectives are investigating corruption in the health-care system of Lombardy, the Italian region of which Milan is the capital. And Scola is very much intertwined with the most powerful man behind it all...

Sitting on the edge of a town outside Naples, the Euromilk dairy-produce distribution firm looks like any other small business engaged in a very ordinary trade. But the compound, with its warehouse and offices, lies in the heartland of the formidable Neapolitan crime network, the Camorra.

Anti-mafia prosecutors claimed a major victory over the powerful and growing 'ndrangheta crime syndicate, infiltrating intimate weddings, baptisms and other events to gather information that led to the arrests Tuesday of 305 people, including top bosses, and the seizure of more than euro60 million ($76 million) in cash and property.