Italian police arrested nearly 150 folks Tuesday in a serious operation in opposition to the Sicilian mafia in Palermo, areas of which stay within the grip of highly effective Cosa Nostra clans.
Warrants had been issued in opposition to a complete of 183 folks, 36 of whom had been already in custody, for crimes together with mafia-type legal affiliation, tried homicide, extortion, drug trafficking and unlawful playing, police stated.
Greater than 1,200 officers had been concerned in daybreak raids, in what media stories stated was the most important operation in opposition to the Cosa Nostra since 1984.
The Sicilian mafia, the inspiration for the “Godfather” motion pictures, is not the drive it as soon as was, topic to years of crackdowns by authorities and overtaken by way of energy and wealth by Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta.
However Palermo police stated their two-year probe had revealed the way it “continues to keep up its grip,” today coordinated by messages on encrypted smartphones.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hailed the operation, which she stated “confirms the state’s fixed dedication to the combat in opposition to organized crime.”
Palermo Mayor Roberto Lagalla additionally praised the operation, saying in a press release that the arrests “dealt a historic blow to the mafia.”
Mafia “workout routines fixed management”
Tuesday’s operation was aimed toward dismantling Mafia clans in a number of districts of the Sicilian capital Palermo and its surrounding areas, after an investigation that gives an perception into how they function.
Police described how the clans cooperated on drug trafficking — a serious supply of earnings — whereas additionally working with mobsters elsewhere in Sicily, and with the ‘Ndrangheta on the Italian mainland.
Inside its territory, the mafia “workout routines fixed management,” police stated.
As in a long time previous, they demand “pizzo”, or safety cash, from companies, and drive merchants to make use of their merchandise, usually at inflated costs.
In a single instance, investigators revealed how a clan took management of distributing mussels and different seafood to eating places in two seaside villages.
Whereas Cosa Nostra bosses today attempt to resolve disputes peacefully to keep away from attracting consideration, weapons had been present in Tuesday’s blitz, police stated, whereas reporting incidents of brutal beatings.
The previous guidelines of top-down group and membership till loss of life nonetheless maintain sway however police stated clan leaders had been “updated,” utilizing encrypted smartphones to speak to keep away from conventional conferences.
And regardless of quite a few arrests through the years, the Sicilian mafia “nonetheless manages to draw a lot of younger individuals who embrace its rules” and provide to work for them, police stated. Final March, Italy expanded a controversial program to take away youngsters from their mafia households to interrupt the cycle of legal conduct being handed right down to new generations.
The brand new investigation additionally revealed a large community of informants, with a clerk within the Palermo prosecutors workplace arrested final November accused of passing on recordsdata.
The Sicilian Mafia for a few years terrorized the Italian public and state, infamous for the killings anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.
However that led to a fierce state clampdown and the ‘Ndrangheta is now thought-about Italy’s wealthiest and strongest mafia, which controls the majority of cocaine flowing into Europe.
Matteo Messina Denaro, the convicted mastermind of a number of the Cosa Nostra mafia’s most heinous slayings, died in Sept. 2023, a number of months after being captured as Italy’s No. 1 fugitive and following a long time on the run.
However Italy’s mafia nonetheless wields affect that extends from tourism to prisons. In December, a analysis institute warned that Italy’s mafias make greater than three billion euros a yr from the tourism sector. That very same month, a Catholic nun was arrested by Italian police for allegedly bringing messages for the mafia to prisoners.
