DOWN AT the fashionable Café de Paris on Rome's celebrated Via Veneto, la vita is suddenly not quite so dolce after all. Immortalised by film maker Federico Fellini in his iconic 1960 masterpiece La Dolce Vita, the Café de Paris yesterday featured at the centre of a real life Mafia investigation.
Carabinieri and finance police seized approximately €200 million worth of goods, businesses and properties in Rome, including the Café de Paris, all allegedly belonging to the ’Ndrangheta crime syndicate, the Calabrian Mafia.
In recent years, senior Mafia investigators have repeatedly warned that the ’Ndrangheta, now widely perceived as the most powerful and dangerous Italian crime organisation, has become a systematic investor in Rome real estate.
Yesterday’s operation would seem to bear this out. Bought in 2005 for the ridiculously low price of €250,000, the Café de Paris in real terms is valued at something closer to €50 million.
Police discovered that the registered owner of this world-famous bar is Damiano Villari, a barber from a remote Calabrian village, who is believed to have acted as a proxy owner on behalf of the Calabrian godfather Vincenzo Alvaro.
Police have already had reason to deal with Villari since he is currently on trial for sexual assault after he had allegedly attacked one of the Café de Paris cashiers because she refused his sexual advances.
Despite yesterday’s raid, the bar remains open until a court hearing within the next 30 days rules on its immediate fate.
The Café de Paris, once a famed haunt of movie stars, directors and wannabees, is approximately 100 metres from the US embassy compound. That proximity may have been the reason why it was the scene of a 1985 grenade attack by Palestinian militants in which 38 people were injured.
Along with the Café de Paris, another nine businesses, as well as various bars, apartments and cars were seized by police yesterday.
Italy’s senior Mafia investigator, Pietro Grasso, said: “This operation is just the tip of the iceberg. Rome is one of those cities where criminal gangs and international traffickers can make money, reinvesting their illegal profits.
“It is well known that organised crime makes its illegal money in the south and then invests in central and Northern Italy.”
Speaking in parliament last October, interior minister Roberto Maroni confirmed the burgeoning economic strength of the ’Ndrangheta when he said that the Calabrian crime syndicate now had an annual turnover of €45 billion, 3 per cent of Italian GDP, 60 per cent of which was based on international drug trafficking.