ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY CONFIRMS WRECK WWI PASSENGER VESSEL

ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY CONFIRMS WRECK WWI PASSENGER VESSEL

(ANSA) - Rome, November 5 - The environment ministry on dismissed reports on Thursday that a wreck off the coast of Calabria was in fact a ship carrying toxic waste and not a World War I passenger vessel.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Italian weekly Espresso claimed that a research vessel sent by the ministry to investigate the wreck had in fact looked at the wrong ship.

The ministry said the wreck was the same as one identified in September when another vessel was sent to inspect it because both had been given the same coordinates by investigators.

Investigators discovered the boat 12 miles off the Cosenza coastline nine weeks ago, reportedly deducing the location from an account by ex-mafioso Francesco Fonti who claimed the wreck was the remains of a Russian vessel, the Cunsky, which had been sunk by a criminal organization in 1992.

The turncoat says he was personally involved in the sinking of two other ships and said he knew of at least 30 more vessels sunk by the mafia in Italian waters in order to dispose of toxic waste.

Fonti, who is under house arrest, claims the waste came from Italian and European pharmaceutical companies and that the 'Ndrangheta mafia was paid up to 15 million euros to sink the ships.