Police in Sicily arrest almost 150 people in mafia crackdown...


More than 1,200 officers involved in dawn raids in and around Palermo, reportedly biggest operation against Cosa Nostra since 1984

Italian police have arrested almost 150 people in a significant operation against the Sicilian mafia in Palermo, areas of which remain in the grip of powerful Cosa Nostra clans.

Warrants were issued against a total of 183 people on Tuesday, 36 of whom were already in custody, for crimes including mafia-type criminal association, attempted murder, extortion, drug trafficking and illegal gambling, police said.

More than 1,200 officers were involved in dawn raids, in what media reports said was the biggest operation against the Cosa Nostra since 1984.

The Sicilian mafia, the inspiration for the Godfather movies, is no longer the force it once was, subject to years of crackdowns by authorities and overtaken in terms of power and wealth by Calabria’s ’Ndrangheta.

But Palermo police said their two-year investigation had revealed how it continued to maintain its grip, these days coordinated by messages on encrypted smartphones.

Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, hailed the operation, which she said “confirms the state’s constant commitment to the fight against organised crime”.
Tuesday’s operation was aimed at dismantling mafia clans in several districts of the Sicilian capital, Palermo, and its surrounding areas, after an investigation that provides an insight into how they operate.

Police described how the clans cooperated on drug trafficking – a significant source of income – while also working with mobsters elsewhere in Sicily, and with the ’Ndrangheta on the Italian mainland.
Within its territory, the mafia “exercises constant control”, police said.

As in decades past, they demand “pizzo” – protection money – from businesses, and force traders to use their products, often at inflated prices. In one example, investigators revealed how a clan took control of distributing mussels and other seafood to restaurants in two seaside villages.

While Cosa Nostra bosses these days try to resolve disputes peacefully to avoid attracting attention, weapons were found in Tuesday’s blitz, police said, while reporting incidents of brutal beatings.

The old rules of top-down organisation and membership until death still hold sway but police said clan leaders were “up to date”, using encrypted smartphones to communicate to avoid traditional meetings.

Letizia Battaglia: Life, Love and Death in Sicily review – the bloody reality of life under the mafia

Despite numerous arrests over the years, the Sicilian mafia “still manages to attract a large number of young people who embrace its principles” and offer to work for them, police said.

The investigation also revealed a wide network of informants, with a clerk in the Palermo prosecutors’ office arrested last November accused of passing on files.
For many years, the Sicilian mafia terrorised the Italian public and state, and became notorious for the killings of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.

But that led to a fierce state clampdown and the ’Ndrangheta is now considered Italy’s wealthiest and most powerful mafia, controlling the bulk of cocaine flowing into Europe.

Italian police arrest 181 in bid to stop Mafia rebuilding in Sicily

Italian police have launched a series of raids targeting Mafia clans operating in and around the Sicilian capital Palermo.

More than 1,200 officers were involved in the operation, which the military Carabinieri force said was aimed at "dismantling" the area's Mafia.

The raids, the biggest for several years, were seen as a bid by Italian authorities to stop the Mafia rebuilding its governing body known as a Cupola.

A number of Mafia bosses have been released from jail in recent months on appeal. But investigators say those still behind bars have used encrypted mobile phones to continue their activities.

They also found that Sicily's Cosa Nostra mafia have updated the practices of their "founding fathers" and no longer need to meet in person.

One local leader had managed to stay in hiding and still hold sway over organised crime in his local district, police explained.

For more than 100 years Sicily's notorious Mafia held a grip on local towns and cities, extorting businesses through protection money and making big profits from drug trafficking.

In the early 1990s crusading anti-mafia prosecutors were murdered as they tried to hit back.

Then in 1993 the so-called boss of bosses, Salvatore "Toto" Riina, was arrested in Palermo, and in 2023 notorious mobster Matteo Messina Denaro was detained as he visited a local clinic.

Although many mobsters are in jail, the Carabinieri said they had succeeded in smuggling tiny mobile phones into their cells in an attempt to continue their criminal activities.

Police said they had found out about the mob's encrypted chats by installing listening devices in suspects' homes and cars. However, they are not yet thought to have cracked the encryption so their ability to eavesdrop has been limited.

According to La Repubblica, police are still trying to hunt down members of the chat who go by nicknames such as Robert de Niro and Spider Man.

Tuesday's raids began before dawn, targeting clans across Palermo, from Tommaso Natale in the north of the city to Porta Nuova in the centre.

Police said their investigation covered a range of suspected offences, from mafia association and drug trafficking to attempted murder and armed crime.

Several bosses who had already been freed from jail after serving sentences are among those arrested.

Among them was reportedly Tommaso Lo Presti, who had spent 12 years in jail before his release in 2023.

There was an outcry last year when it emerged Lo Presti had celebrated his silver wedding anniversary in a Palermo church where anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone was buried.

THIS IS BREAKING NEWS AND A FAST DEVELOPING STORY...

Posted yesterday in "Sicily's Mafia primed for reversal of fortune"

Sue me! Lol

150 people!!! Thats more members than an entire crime family in the US...

That's more than the vast majority of families in Sicily.

Numbers don't always mean everything.

Mafia dons secretly slam ‘miserable’ quality of new recruits — while wishing life was more like ‘The Godfather’

Mafia bosses have been secretly moaning about the “miserable” quality of recruits leaving them “on our knees” — while dreaming it could be more like “The Godfather.”

“The caliber these days is low, a miserable level,” accused Cosa Nostra don Giancarlo Romano was heard saying in a series of wiretaps released as Sicilian police busted almost 150 alleged mafia members in dawn raids Tuesday.

Romano and other real-life godfathers complained about how new recruits are too quick to snitch, breaking the historic code of omertà — while wishing life could be more like “The Godfather,” Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 hit movie starring Marlon Brando as crime boss Don Corleone.
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Mafia bosses have been having discussions on how “miserable” the quality of recruits are — while wanting mafia life to be more like “The Godfather.”

“If you watch ‘The Godfather,’ the connections he had… he was very influential because of the power that he built at a political level,” Romano said in one of the intercepted calls.

“But us — what can we do? We’re on our knees, guys. We think we do business, but these days it’s others who do it.

“We used to be number one, now it’s others,” the alleged mob boss continues.

“We’re just gypsies.”

Romano is also heard in the intercepted phone call telling a young recruit to instead “go to school” to “meet doctors, lawyers, the people who run Italy, Europe.”

The wiretaps shared by local police also give a fascinating insight into life inside Cosa Nostra, including the nicknames by which the godfathers refer to each other — including Spider-Man, Bear and Nephew.

One was also known as Robert De Niro, another actor from “The Godfather” franchise.

Some 1,200 officers in the Carabinieri Palermo were involved in the raids across the island off the southern coast of Italy, sharing bodycam footage of the moment gun-wielding cops stormed a series of locations in and around the Sicilian capital.

The raids saw warrants issued for 183 people, including 36 who were already in custody, on charges including murder, extortion, drug trafficking, arms possession and mafia association.

Italy’s elite anti-mafia commandos known as the Cacciatori, or hunters were deployed from helicopters as part of the raids, which prosecutors hailed as dealing a major blow to Cosa Nostra bosses’ attempts to rebuild and reorganize the group’s central power structure.

The Sicilian mafia has declined in recent years, being overtaken by the Calabrian mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, in terms of influence.

The ‘Ndrangheta controls a vast portion of the European drug trade and is said to make billions through the importing of cocaine from South America.

But Palermo’s chief prosecutor, Maurizio de Lucia, warned that Cosa Nostra is trying to build up its drug trafficking and distribution operations.

He told a press conference that mafia clans have bought firearms on the dark web and are using them to impose protection rackets across Palermo.

“The investigations that led to Tuesday’s arrests demonstrate that Cosa Nostra is alive and present and communicates with completely new communication channels,” he said in the press conference.

“It is doing business and trying to rebuild its army.”

NYPost

They're still pushing the Ndrangheta is so much bigger, badder, and more powerful than Cosa Nostra narrative lol. I'd like to see a Cosa Nostra boss bowing down to an Ndrangheta chief, you won't find it haha. It just sounds good for the papers.

I also brought this up on the Black Hand Forum.

For it to be such a miserable life outside of which there are so many other opportunities, there sure seems to be a lot of people involved.

Romano is comparing today's Cosa Nostra to that of the 1980s when it was at the height of power, despite this, as the chief prosecutor De Lucia said, the vast majority of those arrested are under 50 years old and this should make us reflect

the Ndrangheta needs Cosa Nostra because it controls the wholesale market in Sicily, in fact in the interceptions it is Cosentino who called the boss Serio and not the other way around, they work side by side

“We used to be number one, now it’s others,” the alleged mob boss continues.

“We’re just gypsies.”

Yep. Thats what they said. And I'm sure they're not exaggerating either. Whether it's in the States, Italy/Sicily, or elsewhere. "Traditional" organized crime is not what it was -- nor will they ever hold that type of awesome power again. There's just way too much sophisticated technology today for that.... Its become a much different world.

Nonetheless, Cosa Nostra is STILL Cosa Nostra! They are a very resilient bunch...for centuries already! lol.

So I keep the faith that they will continue on -- especially in Italy/Sicily -- for quite some time. lol

They'll always be here, not just for "quite some time." And thank goodness, imagine how much more gloomy and doomy the world would be if governments and corporations were the only criminals. At least the Mafia keeps things interesting.

They are more and more operating as a national crime syndicate IMO.

It does appear that in recents years the three Mafias work hand-and-hand, more-and-more. So, the term "national" crime syndicate does make sense.

A name you hear more now is "Mafia Unica" no idea who came up with unique.

The mob has always been one in Italy, hence, the very premise of P2. The only place it doesn’t cooperate is in North America, specifically Canada, Ndrangheta vs Sicilians in Montreal. It more than likely the policy of the American Mob to blame, the heavy communists link, since the fall of Berlin and the hanging of Mussolini. The Italo communities in Canada are the most flamboyant and arrogant when it comes to this imo. It’s a pig sty over there!