Italian police have released a video showing the moment they arrested the alleged criminal boss of a group said to have bribed or extorted its way to lucrative public contracts in Rome.<br /><br /> Massimo Carminati was arrested on Tuesday as he drove his car down a small countryside road outside the capital.<br /><br /> Police believe he is the leader of an organisation known as “Mafia Capitale”.<br /><br /> Carminati and other alleged criminal bosses were filmed and recorded in a series of wire-taps and surveillance operations, as police sought evidence to cement their ties with city politicians.<br /><br /> Thirty-seven people have been arrested and dozens placed under investigation.<br /><br /> They include figures from the political left and right but Rome’s former mayor Gianni Alemanno is the highest-profile. He denies wrongdoing but has resigned from posts in his right-wing party.<br /><br /> A web of corrupt relationships brought fat contracts for social housing, gardening, road maintenance, rubbish collection, even refugee shelters.<br /><br /> Documents show how unscrupulous entrepreneurs cashed in on serious social problems.<br /><br /> “Do you realise how much you can make out of immigrants?” says one. “Drugs trafficking brings in less.”<br /><br /> ‘‘They should be ashamed, ashamed. But I’ve felt insulted as an ordinary person for years, not just today. I’m mortified,” said Rome resident Teresa Lizzio.<br /><br /> ‘‘You wonder if it still makes sense to go and vote. I think we must, anyway, at least to try and vote for the least bad,’‘ added another local man, Vittorio Macri.<br /><br /> The current mayor of Rome has ordered a review of city contracts.<br /><br /> Police believe the network springs from violent neo-fascist organisations active in the 1970s and 80s.<br /><br /> They have classified the case a mafia investigation but it’s not thought to be connected to southern Italian mafia clans such as the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the Naples Camorra or the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta.
