A mafia gang in Italy set up hundreds of fake car crashes to get millions of euros in insurance payouts to buy weapons and drugs according to Reuters.
The insurance fraud was just one of the many charges against at least 70 people arrested during a police raid this week in the Calabrian city of Lamezia Terme.
"The insurance scam permitted the boss to manage his clan, to buy guns and drugs, and to pay his men," said Rodolfo Ruperti, head of the police squad that carried out the investigation, according to Reuters.
The mob had doctors, lawyers, auto body workers, and local insurers on its payroll to pull off a fraud that earned the gang close to a million euros, or $1.3 million a year according to Ruperti.
Police seized assets worth close to 1.2 million euros.
The defrauded insurer was a local branch of Zurich Insurance Group, which operated independently, under license from its head office located in Switzerland according to police.
"Zurich does not comment on ongoing investigations and legal proceedings," the insurance company said according to Reuters.
Mob boss Giuseppe Giampa, 32, reportedly extorted protection money from local businesses and sold the gang's votes to the "highest bidder" in a 2010 mayoral race police said.
Police reached a breakthrough when Giampa decided to turn himself into an informant.
Giampa is suspected of ordering approximately 20 murders in in a mob "war" for "control" of the city between 2005 and 2011.
Hitmen of 11 of those murders were arrested this week during the police raid Ruperti confirmed.
"It was a mafia system that not only stained Lamezia Terme with blood and murder, but it also bled dry the already fragile local economy," local police chief Guido Marino said according to Reuters.
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