WEB BUZZ MAFIA

Clement Monterosso (left) and Marie-Helene Giroux.   MONTREAL - The Quebec prosecutors' office has raised eyebrows by hiring a lawyer who has defended members of the Mafia and is married to a lawyer who represented Mob boss Vito Rizzuto. Marie-Helene Giroux works on a special anti-corruption unit that prosecutes municipal corruption cases. Her husband, Clement Monterosso, twice defended Rizzuto before the Supreme Court of Canada, in 2004 and 2006, during the don's failed bid to block his deportation to the United States to face trial for a triple murder. While Quebec Justice Minister Bertrand

ITALY’S financial capital is nothing like Reggio Calabria. Yet when Reggio’s city council was dissolved early last month, Milanese prosecutors promptly arrested Lombardy’s head of housing, Domenico Zambetti, on accusations of aiding subsidiaries of the ’Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia. The police had already arrested 37 ’Ndrangheta suspects in Lombardy. In the number of confiscations of firms and properties in 2010 and 2011, Lombardy lags behind only the southern regions, which are far better known for the mafia . “The mafia has always been here. What we’re now seeing is evolution, with organised crime increasingly acquiring legitimate businesses,” says Claudio Gittardi, one of 12 prosecutors in Milan’s anti-mafia team. Alberto Barcella, chairman of Confindustria Lombardia, the local business association, says members do not always know what they are up against. “ Mafiosi work subtly. They wear jackets and ties, don’t carry shotguns,” he says. Nando d

NAPLES, Italy, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Italian police Thursday scoured sewers in central Naples for drugs and seized $6 million in property in Cantanzaro in operations against mafias , officials said. Police divers scoured sewers in central Naples for drugs and arms belonging to the Camorra, Italy's ANSA news agency reported. Police said they also dismantled "defense systems" in districts such as Scampia. In Cantanzaro, police seized more than $6 million in property allegedly belonging to members of the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta. Police said that the seized property belongs to the imprisoned Limbadi clan head Antonio Mancuso, 73, and to Domenico Campisi, who was killed in June 2011.