Police on Thursday arrested the son of Vito Ciancimino, the former mayor of Palermo who in the early 1990s became the first Italian politician to be convicted of Mafia crimes.
Ciancimino died in November 2002 and is believed by prosecutors to have left his 43-year-old son Massimo a fortune in secret assets and illicit earnings. Investigators suspect the Palermo entrepreneur has covertly managed his father's 'treasure' ever since, relying on the help of 73-year-old international lawyer Giorgio Ghiron who was also arrested on Thursday.
It is unclear how much the Ciancimino fortune amounts to. It is believed to consist of bank accounts and companies in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, the United States, Portugal, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. Ciancimino junior and Ghiron are accused of money laundering, investing illegally obtained funds and hiding behind front companies in order to exploit the cash and assets amassed by the one-time mayor.
Ciancimino's mother Epifania Scardina is also under investigation.
Prosecutors said they had evidence linking her to a Dutch bank account held in the name of a Virgin Islands-based company called Powercase. They said documentation showed the Powercase account contained the equivalent of 6 million euros in 1999.
In 1995, Ghiron appealed to the finance ministry to allow Scardina and her family to remain in their sequestered Palermo apartment because they were poverty stricken. Ghiron, who has offices in Rome, Naples, London and New York, told the ministry that the family did not even have the financial means to organise the move from their home.
Both Ghiron and Ciancimino had been informed they were under investigation.
Ciancimino said earlier this year he was being investigated simply because of his surname.
As the two men were being handcuffed, dozens of police in Palermo, Milan and Rome carried out raids on the offices of companies which have come under scrutiny in the investigation. Investigators found references to Massimo Ciancimino in
letters written to Mafia boss-of-bosses Bernardo Provenzano, who was arrested in April after 43 years on the run.
The letters, found in Provenzano's hideout near Palermo, were from Trapani boss Matteo Messino Denaro. Their tone and
content demonstrated the close ties between Provenzano and Ciancimino senior.
They also appeared to say that Massimo Ciancimino had made off at a certain point with 250 million lire of Mafia money intended for other purposes and "enjoyed himself" in Rome. The businessman, who operates in the field of gas supply
and has associates in Eastern Europe, lived in Rome for a number of years with his father.
Vito Ciancimino was definitively convicted of Mafia association in 2001 and was living under house arrest when he died the following year.
