Three days ago police arrested in Palermo 22 people, the gang that run the drug trafficking (cocaine, heroin and cannabis) in the Ballarò area was led by Silvio Mazzucco and Giovanni Rao, reputed members of Cosa Nostra and close to Luigi Abbate, boss of Palermo Centro crime family.

Pope in Sicily to honour priest killed by mafia

https://www.afp.com/en/news/206/pope-sicily-honour-priest-killed-mafia-doc-1939v01

'Brothers and sisters' of the Mafia, repent, pope says in Sicily

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-p...ays-in-sicily-idUKKCN1LV09J?rpc=401&

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns last week’s police search of the home of Salvo Palazzolo, an investigative reporter who specializes in covering the Sicilian mafia and other criminal networks for the Rome-based newspaper La Repubblica.

https://rsf.org/en/news/italy-police-search-violates-confidentiality-anti-mafia-reporters-sources

The Court of Palermo confiscated assets for about 15 million euros from Francesco Paolo Maniscalco, 54, convicted of mafia association.
These are coffee and food distribution companies based in Palermo, and some bars including the Gran Cafè San Domenico.
Maniscalco had been part of the bandit commando that completed the robbery at the Monte di Pietà, from where jewels of several billion Lira disappeared in 1991.
Maniscalco according to the investigators would be close to the son of Totò Riina, Giuseppe Salvatore .

The mafia boss of the family of Santa Maria di Gesù, Salvatore Profeta, died. The boss was detained in the maximum security prison of Tolmezzo, in the province of Udine, to serve a sentence of 8 years and 2 months.
Profeta, 73, had been hospitalized for ten days in the hospital, and would have died of a heart attack.
He was considered among the most loyal men to the boss Stefano Bontade, assassinated in 1981 in the war unleashed by the Corleonesi of Totò Riina against the so-called 'losing mafia'. Sentenced to life imprisonment for the massacre of Via D'Amelio, where in 1992 Paolo Borsellino and the escort agents were murdered, He was released in 2011 after the various trials ascertained the false declarations of the false repentant Vincenzo Scarantino ..
Returning to the Guadagna, Salvatore Profeta took over the reins of the clan with his old style of 'godfather'.
Speaking of him, the former deputy prosecutor of Palermo, Leonardo Agueci, said: "Profeta was not only the recognized boss but also posed as such"; he had chosen a bar in the main square of the district as a 'office', and every day he received people, dispensed aid and favors to strengthen the control of the territory. "
The boss was arrested three years ago for the Mafia association, extortion and robbery.

La Sicilia publisher 150 mn seized in mafia probe

(ANSA) - Rome, September 24 - Newspaper and TV assets worth
over 150 million euros belonging to the publisher and editor of
the Sicilian daily La Sicilia were seized in a mafia probe on
Monday.
A Catania court ordered the seizure of the assets of Mario
Ciancio Sanfilippo, sources said.
The seizure regards his entire media group including La
Sicilia, majority stakes in La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno in Bari,
and two regional broadcasters, Antenna Sicilia and Telecolor.
The court appointed judicial commissioners to take over the
day-to-day running of the group's activities.

http://uploads.maltatoday.com.mt/ne...s_is_back_on_the_black_list#.W6t5b_lKhdg

Maltese restaurant that changed name to avoid US sanctions is back on blacklist

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/201...a34c292-570c-413d-97c2-f235e6650262.html

2 nabbed for 1-tonne marijuana plot
Near Agrigento

Alfonso Caruana, the boss of the two worlds "friend" of Don Ciccio Messina Denaro

http://ilcircolaccio.it/2018/09/18/...ondi-amico-di-don-ciccio-messina-denaro/

He had turned to the Supreme Court, hoping to be able to commute the life sentence in 30 years in prison. Unfortunately for him, however, the judges of the Supreme Court, have rejected the appeal of the defense of Giuseppe Putrone, 61, brother of Luigi Putrone ex capomafia of Agrigento province. Giuseppe already served 20 years in prison.

Fugitive mafioso nabbed

(ANSA) - Trapani, October 1 - Italian police on Monday arrested in Sicily a fugitive mafioso wanted for wiping out a Brescia family in 2006.
Vito Marino, 52, is the son of a mafioso murdered by fugitive Cosa Nostra No.1 Matteo Messina Denaro in 1986.

Source: www.ansa.it/english/news/general_ne...5def001-3d2c-4eae-9672-cafd69c15bdd.html

Breaking News! Powerful mafioso Vito Bigione has been arrested in Romania. The boss called the "accountant" had been included in the list of the thirty most dangerous fugitives in Italy.

https://palermo.repubblica.it/crona...nia_il_latitante_vito_bigione-208123187/

Bigione, 66, sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment for association aimed at the international traffic of drugs, was one of the first brokers who put in contact Cosa Nostra, the 'Ndrangheta and the South American cartels that manage the international traffic of cocaine.

so where does vito baldimenti son of the don from the pizza connection case stand in the new landscape he was a desserter chased like his father the island? is he a boss he beat the pizza connection case the feds put him on a plane rite after to spain i think

29 drugs arrests in Italy and Spain
Including 'jail killer' Santo Tucci

(ANSA) - Milan, October 3 - Italian police on Wednesday arrested 29 people in two drug trafficking gangs in Italy and Spain.
Among those arrested was Santo Tucci, 62, the so-called 'jail killer'.
Some 219 kg of cocaine was seized as well as several weapons.
Cocaine was brought to Italy from Costa Rica in baskets of pineapples, police said.

the cocaine importers are all sicilians (santo tucci, maurizio ponzo, luigi pappalardo and salvatore grasso) from catania that supplied the calabrians in milan and pavia
last may the catanian broker and businessman salvatore ponzo was shot dead in costa rica

He was on the most wanted list but I think his sentence was suspended by the Palermo Court because of the statute of limitation.
Most likely he lives in Brazil, where he would continue to manage business with the American mafia and the Sicilian one.

The State Police brought to prison yesterday, on the orders of the Palermo General Public Prosecutor, Rosalia Di Trapani, 70, wife of the mafia boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo , recipient of a definitive sentence for extortion aggravated by the Mafia method .
The disputed episodes date back to 2006 when the boss's wife, during her husband's and her son's inaction, had imposed the lace on the owners of a meat-processing business . The investigators of the organized crime section of the Flying Squad in Palermo carried out the investigations against the woman.
She must serve a sentence of 8 years imprisonment.

Europol was quickly involved in this case, since Marino had international links to other EU and third party countries.

(ANSA) - Palermo, October 8,2018 - Claudio Fava, chair of Sicily's regional anti-mafia commission, on Monday received an envelope containing a 7.65-calibre bullet.
DIGOS security police have already opened a probe into the incident.
The envelope only contained the bullet, nothing else, DIGOS said.
The anti-mafia commission, under Fava's lead, is working on various cases including the so-called "Montante system" named after the former head of Sicilian industrial federation Sicindustria, Antonello Montante, who was placed under house arrest on May 14 on charges of conspiracy to commit corruption.
It is also working on cover-ups and "deviations" in probes into the 1992 Mafia bomb slaying of anti-Mafia magistrate Paolo Borsellino.
Claudio Fava's journalist father Giuseppe was murdered by the Mafia in 1984.

Mafia, blitz with 18 arrests in the Catanese: former MP Pippo Nicotra in prison

Blitz against the Santapaola-Ercolano clan at dawn between Acireale and Aci Catena. Among the eighteen arrested in the operation of the carabinieri called "Aquila" there is also Raffaele 'Pippo' Nicotra former deputy UDC then passed in the ranks of the Democratic Party.

Among the charges for the 18 arrested criminal association mafia, extortion with the aggravating of the Mafia method, political electoral exchange mafia, attempted murder, detention for the purpose of drug dealing and illegal possession of weapons.

The crime alleged against Nicotra is the vote of mafia political electoral exchange. The military of Acireale investigated some electoral consultations in which there would be the contribution of exponents of the Catania family of Cosa nostra. Raffaele Pippo Nicotra was taken to prison in execution of a precautionary measure issued by the investigating magistrate at the request of the Catania district attorney's office.

The investigations, which were conducted by the investigative nucleus of the provincial command and the Carabinieri company of Acireale, would have allowed, inter alia, to ascertain, also thanks to the statements of some collaborators of justice, that the suspects were part of two groups historians of the Catania family. According to the collaborators of justice, the suspects would have imposed the lace against several local entrepreneurs over a period of several years.

Mafia-infiltration risk in Genoa- ANAC

Cantone expresses doubts about decree for city after disaster

(ANSA) - Rome, October 10 - Raffaele Cantone, the head of anti-corruption authority ANAC, on Wednesday expressed reservations about the government's decree for Genoa after the Morandi-bridge disaster. He noted that the commissioner tasked with overseeing the construction of a new viaduct to replace the Morandi bridge, which collapsed in August in a disaster in which 43 people died, was assigned "unprecedented" powers. He also warned of the risk of possible mafia infiltration in the reconstruction work. "The waiver of all extra-criminal regulations also entails the waiver of the antimafia code," Cantone told a Lower House hearing, adding that the decree had "shortcomings". "I don't think it is necessary to stress the intrinsic risks in this omission, above all because there are many activities linked to the reconstruction, from the movement of earth to the disposal of refuse, in which mafia companies, unfortunately, have undoubted know-how".

https://youtu.be/YH7juxcWIDQ

anti drug operation 'beautiful hybrid' in the province of catania dismantled a criminal group that produced tons of marijuana supplying several sicilian areas, among the arrested mobsters and 3 policemen

Vatican moves on Caravaggio stolen by Mob in 1969

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/201...0f19098-9b72-4107-a041-56305c02e078.html

Discover the real goodfellas in Sicily's Corleone, the heart of Mafia country

https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/travel/discover-corleone-sicily-a3960451.html

Partinico (Palermo), maxi anti-drug operation: seized 6 tons of marijuana plants. 4 arrests

https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2018/1 ... #cComments

The police seized two shops belonging to the family of the mafia boss Giuseppe Dainotti, killed in an ambush in Palermo last year, because they do not have the health authorization. The shops, a butcher shop and another shop without a sign, located in Via Porta Carini, belong to the nephew of the mafia boss.

Two fugitives and an arsenal All leads to MMD
by Riccardo Lo Verso

The arrests of Bigione and Marino, the arms of Paceco. Something bubbling up in the Trapani area.


PALERMO - Two arrested fugitives and a rediscovered arsenal. Three sequential episodes only apparently unrelated to each other. If it is true that in the province of Trapani not necessarily all investigations must revolve around the figure of Matteo Messina Denaro, who is rooted in Trapanese roots of his criminal power, is with the figure of the fugitive that the three episodes oblige to confront.

In a few days between Vita and Paceco they arrest Vito Marino and find a weapons depot. Marino was a fugitive from 2016, when the life sentence for the Brescia massacre became final. It was he who exterminated, in 2006, the entire Cottarelli family - father, mother and seventeen year old son - in their villa. They arrested him in a sheepfold in the countryside of Vita.

Vito Marino is the son of Girolamo, called 'Mommo' u nano '. In 1986, the killer on board an Alfasud stopped in front of the Paceco boss and exploded two guns of machine guns. Messina Denaro was also shot. 'Mommu u nano' paid for his refusal to kill his brother-in-law's wife who had decided to collaborate with the magistrates. The past is not forgotten: Marino, with the prospect of remaining in prison for life, is one of the worst enemies of Messina Denaro.

How did you arrive at his arrest and find the weapons? Are the two episodes tied? Is there any confidential source behind it?

They spend a few days from the arrest of Marino and in an abandoned farmhouse in the Paceco countryside four ready-to-use Kalashnikovs are found, complete with magazines and ammunition. There was a sawed shotgun in a bin, two 38-caliber revolvers, a shotgun, a mab 38 submachine gun, and another mp-40 rifle. In short, an arsenal at the disposal of the Paceco and Salemi mobsters. And that is to say those who, more than others, have shown great fidelity to the fugitive godfather.

Just as loyal was Vito Bigione for years,manager of drug trafficking originating in Mazara del Vallo. They arrested him in Romania. Long beard and dark glasses to disguise. "My name is Matteo", he told the mobile policemen of Trapani. For years, Bigione, on behalf of the family of Mazara del Vallo, has managed the drug routes between South America and Europe, acting as a glue between Cosa Nostra, 'ndrangheta and South American cartels. Just in South America, now about ten years ago, Matteo Messina Denaro would have been sighted.

Bigione was very respectful with Vito Gondola, the last capomafia of Campobello di Mazara who died last year at the age of eighty. Messina Denaro blindly trusted Gondola. Until March 2010, the correspondence transmission system had been managed by the fathers of the fugitive, Vincenzo Panicola and Filippo Guttadauro, and by his brother Salvatore. When they were all arrested, the fugitive looked to the past to replace them. And he chose Gondola who was already present at the dinner organized in December 1991 based on oysters, lobsters and Dom Perignon in the house of Tonnarella where Totò Riina lived. It was there that the 'chief of chiefs' decided to exterminate the enemies of the Marsala mafia.

All the investigations that led to the two arrests and the kidnapping of arms are coordinated by the Palermo prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi and by the adjunct Paolo Guido, and that is the same as the magistrates who seek Messina Denaro. Something bubbling in Trapanese. We hope to bring the fugitive. Certainly the three news events are a sign that the territory is manned.

https://livesicilia.it/2018/10/14/latitanti-messina-denaro-bigione-marino_1003959/

Palermo prosecutor has requested a total sentence of 176 years for bosses and members of the Borgo Vecchio mafia family in Palermo. They are accused, for various reasons, of mafia association, extortion, fictitious heading of assets. The highest penalties (14 years) have been requested for the chiefs Fabio Bonanno, Domenico Canfarotta, Salvatore D'Amico, Elio Ganci, Luigi Miceli and Domenico Tantillo. The investigation that led, a year ago, to 17 arrests arises from the massive rebellion of the neighborhood merchants who denounced the requests for lace. Some victims have paid for 15 years.

it was not a rebellion, they just admitted to pay pressed by police because in italy now it is a crime to pay protection to the mafia