Raggi became Rome’s first female mayor when she was elected in 2016 in a breakthrough for her party, the Five Star Movement (M5S), which now governs nationally.
She is running for re-election next year.
Raggi said in a pre-recorded TV interview on Canale 5 that the Casamonica family, notorious for its criminal activity, targeted her after she tore down some of their illegally built villas in 2018, forcing her to live with a police escort.
“We have been informed that they were planning an attack against me and my family,” she said, without giving further details.
In the course of her tenure, Raggi had also had disputes with other mafia clans, including the Spada family in the coastal town of Ostia and the Morandos in the eastern suburbs of the Eternal City.
In April of this year the police in Ostia confiscated mafia property worth around €18 million.
Shops and businesses of the so-called Spada clan, which runs bakeries, gas stations, fitness studios, dance schools and gambling dens in the district, were confiscated.
The notorious Spada family built their corporate empire with profits from extortion, drug trafficking and loan shark deals, according to a statement from the financial police.
Raggi said her attempts to bring down mafia clans have had both positive and negative consequences.
“There are parts of Rome where people come close to me to tell me to keep on fighting but then they move away because they are afraid of being seen by the clans,” she said in the interview.
Raggi has had a rocky time as mayor.
Her first years in office were dogged by legal difficulties and numerous defections from her city government.
In 2017, she was probed in relation to accusations of two cases of malfeasance in office in regards to the staffing of her cabinet.
In 2018, all the charges against her were dropped, but the prosecutor’s office has appealed this decision.
A new verdict is expected in the next few months.
