Police closed down a mafia-run radio station they say was being used to broadcast secret messages to imprisoned members through song “dedications.” The story was reported by The Times Online in the U.K.
“The illegal station, set up by a clan of the Camorra (the Naples mafia) at Ercolano — ancient Herculaneum — broadcast ‘requests’ for Neapolitan songs with dedications, which in reality were messages to clan members who tuned in while they were in jail,” the Times reported. “Some of the songs and dedications were a prearranged code to mafia gangsters at large, police said.”
The closure was part of a crackdown involving 54 arrests in the south of Naples on charges of drug trafficking, extortion and murder. “Police confiscated mafia properties, seven armored vehicles and video surveillance systems, as well as the offices and equipment of the radio station,” the Times reported.
