Italy seizes $1.9 billion of assets as Mafia goes green ("Lord of the Wind" arrested)

[mike r]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100914/wl_nm/us_italy_mafia

Italy seizes $1.9 billion of assets as Mafia goes green
By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) – Italy Tuesday seized Mafia-linked assets worth $1.9 billion -- the biggest mob haul ever -- in an operation revealing that the crime group was trying to "go green" by laundering money through alternative energy companies.

Investigators said the assets included more than 40 companies, hundreds of parcels of land, buildings, factories, bank accounts, stocks, fast cars and luxury yachts. Most of the seized assets were located in Sicily, home of the Cosa Nostra, and in southern Calabria, home of its sister crime organization, the 'Ndrangheta.

At the center of the investigation was Sicilian businessman Vito Nicastri, 54, a man known as the "Lord of the Wind" because of his vast holdings in alternative energy concerns, mostly wind farms. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni called the operation "the largest seizure ever made" against the Mafia...

Investigators said Nicastri's companies ran numerous wind farms as well as factories that produced solar energy panels. "It's no surprise that the Sicilian Mafia was infiltrating profitable areas like wind and solar energy," Palermo magistrate Francesco Messineo told a news conference. Officials said the operation was based on a 2,400-page investigative report and followed the arrest of Nicastri last year...