Mobsters clean cash with lotto

ITALIAN mobsters are buying winning lottery tickets to launder millions of euros in cocaine profits.

Carabinieri investigators in southern Calabria yesterday said that an €8 million (6.8m) winning ticket in the national Superenalotto numbers game was sold in a shop owned by the father-in-law of a suspect jailed in a drug investigation.

Police said the 'Ndrangheta offered the anonymous holder of the ticket €8m or a little less in dirty money. The winner avoided taxes on interest due had the win been deposited in a bank.