Naples pizza restaurants 'using wood from stolen coffins'

London, May 18 (ANI): Some pizza restaurants in Naples are using wood from stolen coffins, according to investigators.

The popular Italian dish is said to rely on smoke from wood-fired stoves for its celebrated flavour.

However, police believes few restaurant owners in the lawless port are buying cut-price wood from a gang of coffin thieves operating in the city.

The Daily Paper 'Il Giornale', which belongs to the family of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said: "A real suspicion hangs over pizza, one of the few remaining important symbols of the city, that it could be cooked with wood coffins."

It added: "Not only the pizza, the bread, too, may have been cooked with the wood."

Naples prosecutor Giovandomenico Lepore is leading an investigation into the suspected racket.

"It's no wonder these things are happening given the state of the cemeteries. There are graves uncovered, thefts and vandalism," the Independent quoted Andrea Santoro, president of the city's cemetery commission, as saying.

Il Giornale further claimed that there was "a daily spectacle of uncovered coffins and human remains abandoned in the streets as if they were garbage". (ANI)