Italian mafia bosses are suspected of using an interactive TV soccer show to send secret messages to their jailed cohorts, ANSA reported Friday.
Mobsters are texting in tips, tactics and comments about the beautiful game to "Quelli che il Calcio," which broadcasts fans' opinions via a ticker running across the screen.
But their seemingly benign messages actually contain coded communications to their jailed gang colleagues who are tuning in to the popular sports show from behind bars, its is alleged.
The astonishing tactic was revealed by a former prosecutor who told the Italian parliament's anti-Mafia commission that the program's producers had no idea the service was being exploited.
''The messages often seem ordinary but in reality they hide important service notes to the bosses," Enzo Macri told ANSA.
The mobsters in question are among 600 inmates subject to "Article 41 bis" -- a high security prison regime where convicts are kept in single-person cells and banned from receiving parcels to stop them communicating with the outside world, the Italian news agency added.
