The Italian police arrested almost 150 people on Tuesday in a major surgery against the Sicilian mafia in Palermo, whose areas remain in the grip of powerful Cosa Nostra clans.
The orders were issued against a total of 183 people, 36 of whom were already detained, for the crime, including the criminal association of mafia types, attempted murder, extortion, drug trafficking and illegal gambling, police said.
More than 1,200 officials were involved in the dawn raids, in what media reports say that the biggest surgery is against Cos Nostra since 1984.
The Sicilian mafia, inspiration for the films “Godfather”, is no longer a force that it used to be, subject to the years of decay of power and overcome in terms of power and wealth by Calabria ‘Dranghet.
But the Palerma police said their two -year probe revealed that “he still holds her grip”, these days coordinated by messages on encrypted smartphones.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni welcomed the surgery, which she said “confirms the constant commitment of the state to fight the organized crime.”
Palermo Mayor Roberto Lagalla also praised the surgery, saying in a statement that the arrests “inflicted a historic shot to the mafia.”
Mafia “Exercises Permanent Control”
The surgery on Tuesday was focused on the dismantling of the Mafia clans in several district of Sicilian capital, Palermo and the surrounding areas, after an investigation that provides insight into how they act.
Police described how the clans cooperated at drug trade – the main source of revenue – while also working with the Mafia elsewhere in Sicily, and with ‘Ndranghet on the Italian mainland.
Within his territory, the mafia “is constantly controlling,” police said.
As in the past decades, they require “pizza” or money for protection, companies and forces merchants to use their products, often at inflated prices.
In one example, investigators found that the clan had taken control of the distribution of mussels and other seafood at restaurants in two seas.
While Cosa Nostra bosses are trying to resolve disputes these days so as not to attract attention, weapons were found on Tuesday, police said, as she reported on brutal beating incidents.
The old rules of organization and membership from above down until death still hold, but police said the clan leaders were “ongoing”, using encrypted smartphones to communicate to avoid traditional meetings.
And despite numerous arrests over the years, the Sicilian mafia “still manages to attract a large number of young people who accept his principles” and offer to work for them, police said. Last March, Italy expanded the controversial program Remove children from their mafia families to break the criminal behavior cycle that is transmitted to new generations.
The new investigation also discovered a wide network of informants, with a clerk at the Prosecutor’s Office Palermo arrested last November accused of transferring the file.
For many years, the Sicilian mafia terrorized the Italian public and the state, the infamous for the murders of anti-Mafia, the referees of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.
But this has led to a fierce state clamping and ‘Ndranghet is now considered the richest and most powerful mafia in Italy, which controls most cocaine entering Europe.
Matteo Messina Donaro, a convicted master of some of the most interesting killings of Cosa Nostra mafia, died in September 2023, a few months after he was trapped as a fugitive Italy number 1 and after decades on the run.
But the Italian mafia still has an impact that extends from tourism to prison. In December, a Warned the research institute That the Italian mafia is earning more than three billion euros a year from the tourism sector. The same month, a Catholic nun was arrested Italian police for allegedly adopted messages for mafia prisoners.
