Summary Investigators sent an anonymous letter to a former 'Ndrangheta mafia chief.
ROME (AFP) - A suspected accomplice in the murder of an anti-mafia judge was arrested Tuesday 32 years after the killing thanks to a sting operation combining an anonymous letter with wiretaps, Italian media reported Tuesday.
Thanks to the ruse, Rocco Schirripa is now in jail in Milan as a suspect in the 1983 killing of Turin judge Bruno Caccia, according to the reports.
Investigators sent an anonymous letter to a former Ndrangheta mafia chief, Domenico Belfiore, who is currently serving out a life sentence for ordering the killing -- but he is under house arrest for health reasons.
The letter contained a photocopy of an old newspaper article about Belfiore s arrest with Rocco Schirripa s name written on the back.
The letter got reaction from Belfiore and others, just as the investigators hoped, enabling them to overhear wiretapped conversations that pointed to Schirripa s role in the killing as a "soldier" working for the Belfiore clan of Ndrangheta.
The body of judge Caccia, who was investigating Ndrangheta s criminal activities in the northen Piedmont region, was found riddled with 14 bullets.
The murder during the so-called "Years of Lead" marked by violence by the extremist Red Brigade group was at first thought to be politically motivated, before it turned into a mafia probe.
The scheme that identified Schirripa was coordinated by the Milan prosecution office and star prosecutor Ilda Boccassini, famous for taking on former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
