It is reported that Sicilian mafia don Matteo Messina Denaro had assets equivalent to $5 billion taken away from him by the government. Most of that was not cash in bank accounts, but rather properties and businesses owned by people who he controlled.

DEA agent Hector Berrellez said that him and his team personally found Mexican cartel leader Rafael Caro Quintero’s bank accounts in Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands totaling almost $1 billion and this was about 30-40 years ago.

These are massive dollar figures. Are there any other instances of such large amounts of money belonging to one person being confiscated or discovered by law enforcement? It appears that the cartel leaders had the most money in terms of cash.

The Polverino family within the Camorra had $1.5 billion seized in 2011 according to this article: https://www.france24.com/en/20110505-italian-police-swoop-mafia-assets-polverino-naples

They must be among the strongest crime families within the Camorra and possibly within Italian organized crime in general.

Good to see you back !

Around US$540 million was seized in a 2014 sting targeting the Zaza clan of the Camorra organized crime group in Italy.
Colonel Renato Chicoli of the anti-Mafia bureau in Rome said, “The investigations started in 2009 around Ciro Smiraglia, an entrepreneur who managed a huge flow of money in Rome.”

He said Smiraglia, who was arrested on February 4th, is the nephew of the infamous boss Michele Zaza, the founder of the Zaza clan.

The clan’s current leader is Salvatore Zaza.

These guys are actually far more sophisticated and wealthy nowadays compared to the Italian Mafia’s so-called glory years of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s and those are facts! They definitely had to step up their game for the modern world and they did just that. I'm sure asset and cash confiscations involving the Caruana-Cuntrera Clan are nothing to sneeze at either. Lots of extremely wealthy Italian clans as well as drug cartels and others throughout history and into the present day. I might start my own website, called Gangland International lol.

This article is more than 9 years old
Italy seizes €1.6bn in assets from siblings suspected of mafia links

Wed 8 Jul 2015 17.39 CEST

Italian authorities have seized €1.6bn in assets from a set of siblings in Sicily with suspected links to the Cosa Nostra mafia – one of the largest of such seizures to date.

The three brothers and two sisters, ranging in age from 66 to 78, allegedly made their riches by winning public sector construction projects with the help of the Cosa Nostra. Among the seized items were trusts, property and furniture.

Officials said they were targeting “known entrepreneurs” in the Palermo area who belonged to the Marineo mafia family, which has ties to the Corleone clan.

April 1, 2014

Italy: Police Seize US $820 Million of Deceased Businessman’s Assets
News
On Sunday, Italian authorities seized US $820 million worth of assets belonging to Vincenzo Rappa, a deceased Sicilian businessman.

In 2007, Rappa was sentenced to four years in prison for Mafia association. Upon his death in 2009, his assets were transferred to his sons and nephews.

Italy’s Antimafia Code allows authorities to confiscate property up to five years after the death of someone charged with links to organized crime.

Rappa’s properties were seized a few days before the deadline, and included villas, buildings, land, the TV broadcaster Trm, the advertising agency Publimed, several luxury-car resellers, and construction companies.

According to the Italian newspaper Livesicilia.it , Rappa belonged to one of the most prominent business families in Sicily.

Part of his success came from his cooperation with the Sicilian Mafia, to which he would pay “conspicuous sums of money” for major construction and public works tenders, authorities said.

The only reason i "hold" the Italians as top 1 Criminals is because of these confiscations. You dont hear about other groups getting 1billion dollars+ confiscated etc.

If the Dutch or German authorities would do the same as the Italians there would be the same amount of money confiscated.
Most countries in Europe have a big underground economy.

Although not as large as some modern seizures, the discovery of Al Capone’s hidden cash in 1947 was significant for its time. Capone, a notorious American gangster during the Prohibition era, was known for his involvement in illegal alcohol distribution, gambling, and other criminal activities. After his death, authorities found approximately $10 million in cash hidden in various safes and secret compartments. This discovery provided a glimpse into the vast wealth accumulated by one of history’s most infamous criminals.

Thank you, nice to be back! I like to pop in every once in a while. Yes, I have read about the Zaza/Mazzarella crime family. They seem to be a lot more sophisticated than most of the Camorra clans who are not as involved in politics. I would guess that they as well as the Nuvoletta/Polverino families are the richest and most powerful groups in the Camorra.

That is significant even for today. The money that they all made during prohibition was and still is mind boggling I’m sure. It made the American mafia and organized crime in general what it is today, I believe.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33627093

Here is another article regarding asset seizures of the Ndrangheta, this one being worth billions. It does not say which crime family these all belong to. Reading about the De Stefano, Piromalli and Nirta Maggiore(not to be confused with the small family involved in the San Luca feud bearing the same name), I would venture to say that they are the most powerful and also the wealthiest by themselves.

Yes it was amazing what Capone made and still in his 20s and early 30s.