Lazio Ultras arrested after 2026 Winter Games corruption attempt

Two brothers from an Italian football hooligan group, Lazio’s Irriducibili, have been arrested and accused of trying to illegally obtain public works contracts for next year’s Winter Olympics, Italian prosecutors say.

The men, originally from Rome, sought to profit from the Olympics after establishing Mafia-style control over drug dealing and nightlife activities in the Alpine resort of Cortina, Venice prosecutors said in a statement.

The resort in northern Italy is cohosting the February 6-22 Winter Games with Milan.

The arrested men are accused of posing as high-level members of Rome’s criminal underworld, vaunting their friendship with the late leader of the Irriducibili Fabrizio Piscitelli, who was shot in a Rome park in 2019.

“Irriducibili” roughly translates as “diehards”.

The brothers terrorised business rivals in Cortina, prosecutors charged, mentioning the case of a nightlife events organiser who was dragged into the woods, beaten and held at gunpoint.

A man who owed them drug money was locked in a car boot and threatened with death, and two “unauthorised” drug dealers were also beaten up.

In 2022, the pair approached a member of Cortina’s city government, offering electoral support, which the politician did not accept. They later used a threatening message to ask to be given Olympic contracts, prosecutors said.

The brothers, one of whom was put in pre-trial detention while the other is under house arrest, are accused of extortion aggravated by Mafia-style methods. Five more suspects face the same charges but were not arrested.