TIRANA, Aug. 10 – A shooting that left four people dead in southern Italy this week, including a mafia boss, his driver and two bystanders, has potential ties to the cannabis trade stemming in Albania, an Italian prosecutor told the media this week.
Italian Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Franco Roberti said the massive cannabis trade is being felt across the Adriatic.
“There is a hot conflict today relating to drug trafficking, especially light narcotics coming from Albania. This is a huge business feeding the hunger of organized crime clans in the entire Adriatic coast, from Foggia to all of Europe,” Roberti said, quoted by Albanian online media.
Roberti said more needs to be done in international cooperation to stop the flow of light drugs at the source in Albania to prevent conflict down the line.
“We were in Albania last month to seek cooperation. We met the Albanian interior minister in Rome and he promised great cooperation,” Roberti said.
The assassination s in broad daylight in Puglia has reopened old wounds in the region. Police are not excluding that the killings are linked to two murders in the nearby area of Apricena in June this year.
Il Fatto Quotidiano cited unnamed sources who say investigators believe the ambush could be revenge for an earlier killing this year, part of a mafia war between rival clans that has claimed 15 lives so far in 2017.
The victims were traveling in a Wolkswagen that was accosted by another car. Four or five gunmen opened fire on the Wolkswagen, according to Repubblica, Italy’s largest daily.
Repubblica adds that the ambush took the life of clan leader Mario Luciano Romito, 50. Romito’s driver and brother-in-law Matteo de Palma was also killed, as were two unfortunate innocent bystanders – brothers Luigi and Aurelio Luciani.
The mayor of San Marco in Lamis, Michele Merla, condemned the senseless violence.
“The community mourns two honest workers, innocent victims of an evil, outrageous war, that is not afraid of anything or anyone,” said Merla, according to Foggia Today, a regional newspaper.
