ROME, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of people were targeted by a major anti-mafia operation in Italy on Tuesday, including a town mayor in the northern Lombardy region, the authorities said.
Italy's military police Carabinieri carried out coordinated raids in the provinces of Milan (Lombardy's regional capital), Monza, Pavia, Como, and in Reggio Calabria in the southern Calabria region.
Overall, 21 people were brought to jail, three were put to house arrest, and another three received minor interdicting measures, the police said in a statement.
All of them were variously charged with mafia association, extortion, illegal possession of weapons, drug trafficking, corruption, abuse of authority, and other related crimes.
The investigation began in 2015, anti-mafia prosecutors in Milan and Monza coordinating the probe told a press conference.
Judicial authorities believed the suspects had direct ties with the 'Ndrangheta, the powerful mafia group based in Calabria, but actively operating in the northern and wealthy regions of the country.
The mayor of Seregno -- a little town lying some 30 km north of Milan -- was put under house arrest under suspicion of corruption, for allegedly providing construction contracts to an entrepreneur connected with the 'Ndrangheta.
The local official was not charged with mafia-related crimes, according to investigators.
Tuesday's operation also partially resulted from a major anti-mafia probing called "Infinity", which was run by the local Anti-Mafia District Directorate (DDA) in Lombardy and Calabria in 2010, and brought scores of 'Ndrangheta affiliates to jail.
Mafia groups -- and the Calabrian mob especially -- would have heavily infiltrated economy in Lombardy and other northern regions in the last two decades, according to various investigations.
As such, it would be now easier for 'Ndrangheta mobsters "to infiltrate the institutional fabric" in those areas, Ansa news agency quoted DDA deputy chief prosecutor Ilda Boccassini as saying at a press conference.
