May 20, 2005 Friday
FINAL


SECTION: A SECTION; FLORIDA; Latin America & Caribbean, In Brief; Pg. A9

LENGTH: 84 words

HEADLINE: St. Maarten hotel owner arrested, linked to Mafia

BODY:


PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten -- Italian police have arrested St. Maarten's most prominent hotel owner, accusing him of laundering money for the Sicilian Mafia, Italian police said Thursday.

Rosario Spadaro, 72, was arrested May 9 in Rome's Fiumicino airport, as soon as he landed in Italy on a flight from Caracas, Venezuela, the Messina anti-Mafia police said. Spadaro is the owner of the Maho Beach Resort in the Dutch half of an island shared by the Netherlands and France.



CONTACT: Compiled from wire reports

LOAD-DATE: May 20, 2005