Italian police have seized €11 million in assets and arrested 37 people, including two Carabinieri officers, as part of a probe into a Sicilian Mafia extortion racket.

Police said one victim was the owner of the Via Veneto restaurant in Rome who was forced to come up with €180,000 after receiving threats from mobsters over fruit and vegetable deliveries.

Two Carabinieri officers are accused of illegally using information from a police database to extort the owner.

The investigation focused on the Renzivillo family of Gela, Sicily, and its drug-dealing envoys in Germany.

It showed how Cosa Nostra had infiltrated Roman businesses, using legitimate fresh and frozen fish front companies, and made alliances with other organised crime groups, including the 'ndrangheta and Camorra.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.