One of 17 Italian businesses raided Thursday by Italian finance police, the guardia di finanza, operates on the U.S. Navy base in Sigonella, Sicily, Navy officials said Friday.
Police confiscated a computer and financial records from the “Pizza Villa” restaurant, located on Naval Air Station Sigonella II.
The restaurant is one of two pizzerias run by Ortensia Prestipino, the wife of reported mob boss Corrado Favara, according to news accounts published in the daily newspaper La Sicilia in Friday’s editions.
Italian officials served a search warrant at 9:30 a.m. Thursday “as part of an ongoing investigation involving a possible organized crime connection to the family who owns the ‘Pizza Villa,’” Navy spokesman Chief Petty Officer John Musser said in a statement released Friday.
No employees from the restaurant at the military base were arrested, however, Italian police arrested 35 others in connection to the raids, Italian media reported.
The Italian Air Force notified U.S. Navy officials that the financial police were at the base to execute the search warrant, Musser said. The base restaurant remains open and U.S. officials are cooperating with Italian officials during the investigation.
According to reports in La Sicilia, the investigation surrounds the families Pillera-Puntina, two reported mob families who joined forces to keep peace between them but share in profits of illegal activity. Police relied on wire-tap conversations and audits to file the warrants and conduct the raid.