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Mafia using football show to send messages to jailed bosses

ITALIAN GANGSTERS are using a football TV show’s text ticker to send coded messages to their jailed bosses.

The Italian programme, which is hosted by a former showgirl, allows football fans to send SMS text messages which then run along a ticker tape at the bottom of the screen when the show is being broadcast.

Anti-mafia prosecutors believe that members of organised crime gangs have caught onto the interactive feature, sending seemingly innocuous comments and remarks which in fact contain important messages for imprisoned mafia godfathers, many of whom continue to run their criminal empires despite being behind bars.

One of the messages, allegedly of significance for a jailed criminal mastermind, simply read: “All is well, Paolo”.

The ruse was disclosed by Enzo Macri, a senior former national anti-mafia prosecutor, to the Italian parliament’s Anti-Mafia Commission.

“What struck us was the apparent banality of the contents of the SMS messages,” Mr Macri said.

“In reality, they concealed precise communications to mafia chiefs who, because of the prison regime under which they are held, had no other means of communication with the outside world.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .