Sicilian vineyard owner arrested in anti-mafia raids

Police have seized one of Sicily's leading vineyards on suspicion that its award-winning wines were produced with mafia money, it was revealed today. Magistrates ordered the arrest of Francesco Lena, the owner of the Abbazia Sant'Anastasia vineyard, near Palermo, after wiretapping mob bosses who described business links dating back to the 1970s with him. Lena is suspected of investing money from the Madonia clan to nurture hundreds of acres of vines close to an abandoned 12th century abbey, where he specialised in local grapes, embraced ecological techniques and extolled what he described as "native, ancient traditions". Magistrates believe he kept up his mob ties as he went on to open a luxury boutique hotel on the site of the abbey while producing wines that won awards in the US and were described by Decanter magazine as boasting "enticing perfumed notes with berry fruit aromas". Described as a brilliant entrepreneur and engineer, Lena was lauded for creating a "pure Sicilian Eden" at the abbey, which sits in lush countryside overlooking the Mediterranean. But even as Italian government trade missions extolled the qualities of his wines around the world, Lena was working as a "partner to men of honour" in Sicily, magistrates said. He was among a series of high profile Italians arrested on Thursday in a round-up which exposed the Sicilian mafia's alleged links with large and apparently respectable firms, including companies targeting contracts to build waste incinerators in Sicily. Police officers wearing ski masks to hide their identities detained him. "The picture emerging is that the mafia today has two ways of operating," Francesco Messineo, a senior Palermo magistrate, said. "On one hand, there is the mafia that engages in small-time extortion, that will put glue in your locks … on the other hand is the mafia involved in big business and contracts." Mafia interest in food and drink has ranged from the Naples mafia's connections to buffalo mozzarella production to the involvement of the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta in the fruit and vegetable wholesale trade.