British town taken over by ‘Italian mafia’ now popular with commuters | UK

Woking, a quiet town in northwestern Surrey, UK, was once reportedly a hotbed of the Italian mafia. Now it is reinventing itself as a peaceful commuter town.

In the 1970s, and into the 1980s and 1990s, Woking was reportedly “taken over” and dubbed the “Surrey Sopranos”, before the organised crime syndicate was defeated in a police crackdown.

“There was definitely a mafia group in Woking in the 80s and 90s,” one resident told The Sun.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, remembers a time when there was a lot of crime on the streets of Woking.

He said: “There was a raid there in the 1980s. It was above the NatWest bank and apparently they (the gangsters) kept their money.

“Margaret Thatcher was in power at the time and she apparently wanted them all to disappear.

“I don’t know about the modern mafia. Woking has changed a lot and is a commuter town. It’s not what it used to be. But yes, there are a lot of Italians here and yes, I’ve seen the criminal side with my own eyes.”

Another resident told the newspaper that the Sicilian Mafia at the time was mainly concentrated in the Horsall Road and Cedar Road neighborhoods.

Lee Burnham, a 71-year-old Woking resident who has lived his entire life in the Italian football team, even revealed that he was friends with a gangster who played for the Italian football team just like him.

“He upset someone in Woking, someone quite big,” he said. “I don’t know what it was about.

“Anyway, he got caught, we go back to the eighties, and he rolled out the cloak. He was jailed and I never saw him again and to this day I have no idea what happened to him.”

The number of Sicilians in Woking is largely due to a large POW camp that was once located in nearby Send. After the war many settled in the Surrey city.

Luca, the owner of the Italian Good restaurant in Woking, is also Sicilian.

The Sicilian population of Woking owes its existence partly to a large prisoner of war camp at nearby Send.

Luca, owner of the Italian Good restaurant in Woking, is originally from Sicily.

“I’ve heard stories,” he said. “They’re even my customers!

“I’m from Sicily. Cosa Nostra is from Sicily. There are a lot of Sicilians in Woking.”