Italian mobsters seized after £28m lotto coup

Five mafia mobsters who managed to identify £28 million winners in a lottery syndicate and threatened them into handing over the money have been arrested by police near Naples.

Police swooped on the mobsters after an 18-month operation. The five arrested are all members of the local Naples mafia, known as the Camorra, and were members of the feared Cava-Genovese crime family which operates in the area.

The 30 labourers and farmers won the money two years ago, but within weeks of the win mobsters tracked most of them down and extorted a "sizable share" of the winnings.

A spokesman for the Naples police anti-mafia department said: "This was a very delicate undercover operation which involved several officers and was brought to a successful conclusion.

"Five people were arrested as part of the operation which began after some of the syndicate came forward and told police - not many did and some of those we contacted did not want to co-operate out of fear.

"The criminals involved used threats of violence towards the winners and their families and they were intimidated by the sight of these men carrying guns and handed over sizable sums of money."

Large lottery winners never go public in Italy because of the threat of mafia intimidation.