Usually the mayor cuts the ribbon. On Wednesday, in Calabria, he got the knock on the door.
What happened
On 28 October, Carabinieri special units arrested 41 people around Corigliano-Rossano and the plain of Sibari, in the province of Cosenza. 24 went to prison and 17 were put under house arrest. Among them: Flavio Stasi, the town's centre-left mayor, re-elected in 2024. Prosecutors accuse him of a vote-for-favours deal with the mafia around those 2024 local elections. An opposition councillor was arrested too.
The full list of charges, spread across different suspects, reads like a crime-novel index: mafia association, murder, extortion, robbery, weapons and helping illegal immigration. Nobody has been convicted; these are accusations, and Stasi will have his say in court.
The juicy bits
The investigation began in 2021, when former insiders started talking. A key clue was the "bacinella", a shared cash book kept by a clan from nearby Cirò, where the Rossano group's money also showed up. Yes, the mob keeps accounts. Some of us can't even keep receipts.
Investigators say the clans also sold work permits. With help from willing business owners, they filed fake job offers for seasonal workers, never meant to hire anyone, and charged migrants thousands of euros for the papers.
Also arrested was Damiano Pepe, known as "Tripolino", described as a boss of a local clan. Just days earlier he had been wounded in an ambush in Cassano allo Ionio. His partner, Silvana Sibarelli, was killed.
Why it matters
Investigators link the arrests to a new clan war in the area. When the vote itself is up for sale, the whole town pays the bill.