By Playfuls Team Italian police have dismantled a mafia plastic recycling network led by a dangerous criminal, shipping toxic plastic materials to China to turn into shoes for later sale in Italy, police said.
Police arrested 10 people and put five others under house arrest and froze the work of five companies in Sicily after the disclosure of a recycling ring contaminated with fertilizers, toxins and pesticides.
The suspects were charged with extortion, illegal weapons possession, serious bodily harm and waste smuggling.
Police said the network was led by Claudio Carbonaro, a gangster "who was behind the heinous crimes of the 1980s and 1990s involving more than 60 murders."
After becoming a police witness, Carbonaro returned in 2013 to Sicily, where he leads a mafia gang and began his work in smuggling polluted plastic, which generates a lot of money.
The police operation follows a four-year investigation following the seizure of shoes in Rome made of toxic materials. The investigation revealed that plastic waste was being collected in warehouses in Sicily, which would not be shipped to China and returned to Italy as shoes.