Their money sleeps with the fishes.
€1.6bn worth of assets has been seized from five Sicilian siblings suspected to be linked to the mafia in Sicily.
Italy’s anti-mafia police (DIA) have seized dozens of bank accounts, motor vehicles and 800 buildings including houses and factories that all belong to these 5 siblings; Carmelo Virga, 66, Vincenzo, 78 and Francesco, 71, Anna, 76 and Rosa, 68.
The three Virga brothers and two sisters were from a family of occasional farm workers in the 1980s until they suddenly became multi-millionaires through illicit means.
It is thought the family received ‘help’ from the Cosa Nostra branch of the Mafia to secure construction contracts related to public works.
The seizure is one of the biggest in the 20-year history of the DIA.
Vice chief of operations Adelmo Lusi told a news conference: “The (€1.6bn) sum is enormous for a family unit that until 30 years ago was made up of carpenters, manual labourers and housewives.”
The Cosa Nostra was Italy’s most powerful mafia group in the 1980s and 1990s but have since been overtaken by modern mafias such as the Calabrian Ndrangheta organisations.
Hat-tip: Irish Examiner
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