ROME, Oct.18 (Xinhua) -- Italy has busted an international crime ring that smuggled stolen oil from Libya into Italy, officials announced Wednesday.
"Trafficking in stolen oil destined for consumption as fuel: 9 suspects arrested," the Finance Guard tweeted in the early hours of Wednesday morning, posting video footage documenting their operation, code-named "Dirty Oil".
Charges include international racketeering with intent to smuggle oil aggravated by Mafia methods, because one of the arrested suspects, named as Nicola Orazio Romeo, is linked to the Santapaola-Ercolano organized crime clan in Sicily, the Finance Guard said in a statement.
A total of five Italians have been arrested, including the CEO of an Italian oil wholesale company called Maxcom Bunker S.p.A., a business consultant, and a company employee.
Also arrested were two Libyans: the leader of an armed militia operating in Libya near the Tunisian border, who is already detained in Libya on oil smuggling charges, and a man who is suspected of handling the militia's financial affairs.
Two Maltese nationals were also arrested on suspicion of organizing the shipments along with the help of the Mafia mobster, according to the Finance Guard statement.
The fuel stolen from Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) was escorted by Libyan militias onto refitted fishing boats, shipped using fake Saudi certificates of origins via a system of shell companies to Malta and then to Sicily, where it was siphoned into the legal fuel market at cut-rate prices, according to the Finance Guard.
The Finance Guard said they documented over 30 such shipments totaling over 80 million kilos of stolen oil worth about 30 million euros (35.36 millin U.S. dollars) in the course of their one-year investigation.
"We cannot exclude that part of the profits from this illicit traffic ended up in the hands of (the so-called Islamic State) ISIS (militia)," Catania Prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro told reporters during a televised press conference.
The investigation was sparked by a complaint filed by Italian oil and gas giant ENI, Italian ANSA news agency reported. (One euro = 1.18 U.S. dollars)
