Jailed Mobsters Sent Messages Via Italian Soccer Show

(Aug. 23) -- Italy's mafia clans are using a popular soccer show on state TV to transmit secret messages to jailed crime lords, according to a leading Italian lawman.

Enzo Macri, head prosecutor in the central Italian city of Ancona, told a parliamentary anti-mafia panel that imprisoned godfathers were keeping up to date with happenings in their crime empires via the Sunday afternoon sports program Quelli che il Calcio. The show -- which roughly translates as The Soccer Crowd -- encourages viewers to text in comments and jokes, which are then broadcast on a ticker running along the bottom of the screen.

While most of the texts are entirely innocent, some allegedly contain encrypted messages intended for jailed mob men. "The texts appear to be from one football fan to another, messages of friendship," said Macri, according to the London Times. "Take the message 'Ciao Franco, the journey went well.' This refers to the safe arrival of a drugs shipment." Another simple message such as, "Paolo, all is in order," indicates that a task handed to a gang member had been carried out, the prosecutor added.

Macri told parliamentarians that the scheme first came to light when prison wardens intercepted a letter telling a jailed mobster to tune in to the show.

This ploy is the latest attempt by the mafia to stay in touch with some 600 mob bosses currently serving time in maximum-security prisons. Under Italian law, crime lords are barred from making phone calls, receiving parcels and talking with other prisoners -- measures designed to isolate the godfathers from their criminal underlings.

But the ever-inventive mafia continues finding ways to keep the communication channels open. In 1998, for example, investigators in Palermo found that loving messages sent by bosses to family members contained coded hit lists. Other prisoners, meanwhile, have been caught stuffing notes into their children's pockets while hugging them. And the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta syndicate even bought a radio station to play pre-arranged songs whose meaning would be understood by inmates.

Quelli che il Calcio's producers and presenters have said they had no idea the show was being exploited by crime syndicates and would stop running texts when the program returns in mid-September. Host Simona Ventura told Italian daily La Repubblica that she thought the scheme was "pretty ingenious" and declared that it proved Quelli che il Calcio's universal appeal.

"[Our viewers range] from the young, to graduates, to the old," she said, "and now, I discover, mob bosses and their families, too."