Trapani (Sicily), Oct 5 (IANS/AKI) A luxury tourist resort, 400 properties and offshore companies were among assets worth 200 million euros impounded on Wednesday by police in Sicily from a local businessman with alleged mafia links.
Calcedonio Di Giovanni, who is from Monreale, near Palermo, was also put under 'special surveillance' for three years and cannot leave his place of residence, police said.
The 'Kartibubbo' resort at Campobello di Mazara near on Sicily's west coast was among the assets seized from Di Giovanni on the orders of anti-mafia investigators in Trapani.
Several mafia fugitives have stayed at the secluded 'Kartibubbo', according to investigators.
Di Giovanni has "enriched the Sicilian mafia" and has close ties to several of its crime families including the Agate clan in the western coastal town of Mazara del Vallo, investigators said.
He has defrauded the Italian state and the European Union of "sizeable" funds for numerous mafia-tainted business ventures in the real estate and tourism sectors, investigators claim.
Di Giovanni also owes the Italy's inland revenue 60 million euros in unpaid taxes, according to police.
--IANS/AKI
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