Italy: Tax police seize €2.5mln from alleged Sicilian mafia boss

(AKI) - Italian tax police on Friday in the Sicilian capital, Palermo impounded assets worth over 2.5 milion euros belonging to an alleged Sicilian mafia boss, Vincenzo Collesano. The assets included a company in , four apartment anda a garage, as well as bank accounts worth 50,000 euros.

Magistates in Palermo ordered the seizure of the assets belonging to 57-year-old Collesano. He is believed to head the city's Partanna-Mondello crime family, which has a firm grip on the local extortion racket.

Collesano was arrested in January 2007 on suspicion of mafia association and extortion.

More than 30 businessmen have been kicked out of the Sicilian chapter of Confindustria - Italy's main private employers' association - for failing to report mafia extortionists, chapter president, Ivan Lo Bello said last week.

Confindustria in 2007 revised its statute to make it obligatory for the association to expel members found to be paying mafia protection money.

It is estimated that Italian organised crime syndicates - the Sicilian mafia, the Naples mafia or Camorra and the 'Ndrangeta in Calabria earn over 75 billion euros annually from extortion and loan sharking.