Italian police have reportedly arrested 24 people in an operation targeting the Lo Russo crime syndicate in connection with a scheme to intimidate grocers and supermarkets in Naples into buying bread at prices considerably higher than the market standard. The police also seized three bakeries allegedly identified as Lo Russo-controlled. The crime group reportedly forced merchants to buy the bread or risk seeing their shops burned or damaged in other ways. Lieutenant Colonel Giuseppe Furciniti, commander of the organized crime unit in Naples of the national financial police corps, said the scheme was common for the group, noting, “This time it was bread, other times it has been buffalo mozzarella.” See Associated Press, June 27, 2016.