Mafia prosecutor gets gunpowder in mail

• Tweet

CALABRIA, Italy, March 8 (UPI) -- A lead anti-Mafia investigator in Italy received an envelope containing gunpowder and a threatening message, police said.

Giuseppe Lombardo leads investigations into Reggio Calabria's most powerful 'Ndrangheta clans, Italy's ANSA news agency reported Friday.

He is looking into ties among suspected crime families and "criminal elements in the institutions, politics, business and free-masonry," police said.

A note accompanying the gunpowder read: "If you don't stop it, another 200 kilograms are ready."

In Paterno, police said they arrested seven people accused of extorting money for the Mafia.

Police said they acted on accusations made by a construction entrepreneur who said he has been the victim of a protection racket since 2002.

Meanwhile, officials in Calabria remembered the women who have acted against the 'Ndrangheta mob Friday, International Women's Day. Lea Garofalo told police details about her mobster husband Carlo Cosco and was then killed, ANSA reported. The couple's daughter later testified against her father, who received six life sentences for the murder.

"These women were able to distance themselves from a certain cultural model of wife and mother. They disowned the logic of blind obedience and submission to the head of the clan, recovering their dignity as women and choosing a different future for their children. This is the model of womanhood I would like to dedicate tomorrow's holiday to," anti-mafia prosecutor Ottavio Sferlazza said.