Italian police uncover Nazi plot as 19 arrested and weapons seized
Suspects allegedly wanted to create ‘openly pro-Nazi, xenophobic, antisemitic group’😬
Suspects allegedly wanted to create ‘openly pro-Nazi, xenophobic, antisemitic group’😬
Police in Italy say they have arrested 19 far-right extremists in various parts of the country who wanted to form a new Nazi party.
During their raids, police discovered weapons, explosives, Nazi plaques featuring swastikas, Nazi flags and books on Adolph Hitler and Mussolini
During their raids, police discovered weapons, explosives, Nazi plaques featuring swastikas, Nazi flags and books on Adolph Hitler and Mussolini
According to prosecutors in Caltanissetta, Sicily, who have led the investigation named Black Shadows, the suspects allegedly wanted to create “an openly pro-Nazi, xenophobic, antisemitic group called the Italian National Socialist Workers’ Party’’.
The members, who allegedly set up a chat group for the military-style training of militants, had also made contact with other neo-Nazi groups outside Italy, including Britain’s neo-Nazi Combat 18 and Portugal’s far-right New Social Order.
The head of the organisation was a 50-year-old woman based in Padua, in the north of Italy, who works in the public administration and has no criminal record. According to the police, her nickname is “Hitler’s Sergeant Major”, and investigators found swastikas and anti-Semitic
material at her home.
Another suspect is a 26-year-old woman from Sicily who won an online beauty contest called “Miss Hitler” and spoke at a far-right conference in Lisbon in August.
Another suspect is a 26-year-old woman from Sicily who won an online beauty contest called “Miss Hitler” and spoke at a far-right conference in Lisbon in August.
The head trainer of the militants was a former senior member of the powerful Calabrian mafia ‘Ndrangheta who turned supergrass a few years ago and has since collaborated with the police. He was also a former member and contact person in the region of Liguria of the
neo-fascist Italian political party, Forza Nuova.
In the homes of the suspects, police found leaflets with insults against two MPs for the centre-left Democratic party: Emanuele Fiano, a prominent figure in the Italian Jewish Community, and Laura Boldrini, a former
In the homes of the suspects, police found leaflets with insults against two MPs for the centre-left Democratic party: Emanuele Fiano, a prominent figure in the Italian Jewish Community, and Laura Boldrini, a former
parliamentary speaker and the victim of persistent online abuse and bogus news reports.“If you are trying to scare me, you got it wrong,’’ said Fiano on Facebook. “Not even the real Nazi destroyed us, never mind you.”
Last July, police in northern Italy detained three men after uncovering a huge stash of automatic weapons, material featuring Nazi symbols and a three-metre long air-to-air French-made Matra missile in an hangar of Rivanazzano Terme airport in Lombardy.
