ROME, Italy -- Italian police found over three million euros in cash stashed inside the walls of an alleged drug lord’s house following a tip-off, a top anti-mafia prosecutor told AFP Wednesday. The raid also uncovered Kalashnikovs, along with other weapons and 11 Rolex watches, said Naples Prosecutor Nicola Gratteri. The haul was recovered as part of an investigation first begun in 2023, which culminated Monday with the arrest of 34 people accused of belonging to an armed criminal association and using mafiosi methods to traffic narcotics. The cash and a stash of weapons were seized last year from a property in Caivano, a northeastern suburb of Naples in southern Italy overrun by the Camorra mafia, said Gratteri. The tip-off came from a suspect arrested in July 2025, who turned state witness. Two days later, police raided the house. “We knew the money was there, but we didn’t know where, so we dismantled the house. Many of the bundles of cash were in compartments set into the walls,” Gratteri said. “Others were hidden under the floor and under the shower tray,” he said. Detectives had focused on an area of Caivano known to be a hub for the mass dealing of drugs, particularly cocaine. The informant told police the money was watched over by the drug lord’s wife, whose underage children were part of a team tasked with keeping it under 24-hour surveillance, according to the Anteprime24 local news website. The hideaways were also protected by electronic security systems, it said. Wiretaps Police intensified wiretaps to gather as much information as possible before launching the raid. The cash was likely the earnings from drug sales, some of which would then have been used to buy more drugs, said Gratteri. The Camorra, centred around the Naples area, is one of Italy’s three main organized crime groups, along with Sicily’s Cosa Nostra and the ‘Ndrangheta, based in Calabria. Wiretaps played an essential role in the investigation -- as they do in all probes targeting organized crime, Gratteri said. He has fiercely criticized Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government for overhauling the law on wiretaps, introducing new restrictions -- such as sweeping limits on cross-case use of intercepted communications. “Wiretaps are essential. We need to invest in new ways of wiretapping and inject funds into it,” he said. Caivano made the headlines in 2023 after it emerged that two female cousins, aged 10 and 11, had been gang raped by other youths. Meloni ordered a crackdown and funnelled funds into rebuilding the neighbourhood’s derelict sports centre, hiring more social workers and opening a police station. “But it’s obvious the drug dealing did not stop, it just moved into another area,” Gratteri said. “What has been done in Caivano needs to be done systematically across the whole territory.” By Ella Ide, AFP
