MILAN: Hardcore supporters of AC Milan and Inter Milan were arrested on Monday for alleged organized crime offences, Italian police said. In a statement, Italy’s finance police said that leading figures among the “ultras” of two of the country’s most important football clubs had been arrested for “criminal conspiracy aggravated by mafia methods, extortion, assault and other serious crimes”.

“The suspects are almost all members of the Milan teams’ ultras groups while the crimes relate to revenues made around football,” added the finance police. A police source told AFP that 19 people had been arrested in total, including the two heads of the Inter and Milan ultras, Luca Lucci and Renato Bossetti.

Monday’s arrests come a few weeks after the reputed heir of a powerful crime family was killed by one of Bossetti’s predecessors. Andrea Beretta, who himself has a long criminal record, stabbed to death Antonio Bellocco during an altercation outside a boxing gym in a Milan suburb early his month. Bellocco’s death was a shock because of his reportedly high status within the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, which led to Beretta’s family being placed under special surveillance by the police over fears of violent reprisals.

It also highlighted suspicions that mafia mobs were infiltrating ultra groups, attracted by the earnings some supporters’ organizations allegedly earn through illicit activities ranging from ticket touting to drug dealing. Beretta took a leading role in the Curva Nord section of the San Siro after career criminal Vittorio Boiocchi was shot dead outside his home in October 2022. Italian media widely reported at the time of his murder aged 69 that Boiocchi had bragged in wiretapped conversations about earning 80,000 euros ($88,000) a month through his position as ultra leader. — AFP