ROME, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Italian authorities issued 23 arrest warrants and seized assets worth some 280 million euros (about 313 million U.S. dollars) in a major anti-mafia operation on Friday.
Raids were carried out in Rome, Naples, Milan, and Pescara to round up members of two criminal groups whose illegal activities were based in and around the Italian capital, according to a police statement.
Assets seized comprised some 46 commercial activities in Rome -- including popular restaurants and bars -- slot machine rooms, real estate, company shares, and financial and bank accounts.
The operation called "Babylonia" was ordered by the Anti-Mafia District Directorate (DDA) in the Italian capital, and carried out by Italy's military Carabinieri police and finance police.
One of the two groups targeted by the probe was allegedly linked to the Naples-based Camorra mafia, prosecutors told a press conference in Rome.
All of those arrested were variously charged with criminal association, extortion, usury, money laundering, and fraudulent conveyance of assets and values.
The Italian capital has come under pressure in terms of mafia infiltration of the economy in the last years, investigators also said.
"Organized crime is a big issue in Rome, due to the large amount of money of uncertain origin being injected into economic circuits that are apparently legal," Rome's chief prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone explained.
The probe unveiled how criminal groups would have "rushed the fringes of the Italian capital" by investing not only in rigged slot machine rooms, but in legal restaurants, tobacco shops, and other commercial activities, according to the police statement.
