https://www.occrp.org/en/27-ccwatch...ostra-leader-among-32-arrested-in-sicily

Cosa Nostra Leader Among 32 Arrested in Sicily

Two politicians among mafia arrests in Trapani
INSIDER NEWSDESK | 5 MARCH 2019

TRAPANI - Police of the Provincial Command of Trapani have arrested 25 people facing allegations of mafia association, political-mafia electoral exchange, extortion and damage.

Among those who have been arrested are two political figures. The first is ex regional deputy of the Democratic Party (PD) Paolo Ruggirello, accused of mafia association, as well as former councilor of Trapani Ivana Inferrera, who is being investigated in relation to charges of political-mafia exchange.

Ruggirello, 52, from Trapani, was a candidate for the last political elections, however he was unsuccessful.

According to investigators, the two politicians “offered” themselves to the mafia, proposing themselves as “points of reference” for the clans and, in some cases, even entrusting them with the management of the electoral campaign.

As part of the investigation, the military have identified a "cell" of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, on the island of Favignana and seized assets of some 10 million euros.

On the island brothers Francesco and Pietro Virga, the sons of Trapani mafia boss Vincenzo Virga who has been in jail since 2001, had taken over the prestigious Grand Hotel Florio, which is now under seizure. They too are among the 25 arrested in the police blitz in Trapani.

Palermo's court of assizes sentenced to life imprisonment Pasquale Merendino and Giuseppe Correnti, accused of the murder of Massimiliano Milazzo, a 26-year-old of Misilmeri, beaten, tortured and killed in June in the country in province of Palermo. After having cut off a hand with a hoe, the two killers would have burned and made the body disappear. The motive for the crime was identified in the contrasts between the victim and the defendants in the management of the drug dealing and for some thefts committed by Milazzo.
The young man was considered a loose dog and, according to the prosecutors, would have been punished for this with death. The decision to cut off his hand would be taken to make clear the meaning of the atrocious gesture committed.

https://www.ragusanews.com/2019/03/08/attualita/mafia-torturato-ucciso-ergastoli/97326

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...mafia-hitmen-to-kill-ex-lover-say-police

Woman hired Sicilian mafia hitmen to kill ex-lover, say police

Mafia: 110 years after the murder, Palermo remembers policeman Joe Petrosino !

Police arrested 32 members of Cosa Nostra in Palermo, Porta Nuova family, on charges of mafia association, extortions, drug trafficking and money laundering.

Double murder in the tough Zen quarter in Palermo. The victims are a young 18-year-old boxer, Giacomo Lupo, and his father Antonino of 53. A macabre coincidence, the young boxer known in the area, lost his life in the street named after the American boxer of Italian origin Rocky Marciano.

The new mafia in Palermo : 15 districts managed by 81 families

http://www.addiopizzo.org/index.php/la-nuova-mafia-a-palermo-15-mandamenti-gestiti-da-81-famiglie/

The funeral of the Mafia boss Tommaso Spadaro, who died a month ago in Perugia at the age of 82 while he was serving house arrest , had been held in the church of the Palermo cemetery of Sant'Orsola. Yesterday, however, in the church of Santa Teresa alla Kalsa, in the heart of the Sicilian capital, a solemn function was held officiated by Father Mario Frittitta, arrested in the Nineties and then acquitted for having said mass in the den of the fugitive Pietro Aglieri.

Mafia: An ambush failed by the killers last night in Pachino, a hot spot for investigators. The gunman fired 5 pistol shots at the address of a 55-year-old, Corrado Vizzini, who was miraculously wounded only, even though the health workers subjected him to a surgical intervention during the night and reserved the prognosis. The man is admitted to the De Maria hospital in Avola.

Mafia boss amongst those investigated in Scopelliti case
INSIDER NEWSDESK | 18 MARCH 2019

REGGIO CALABRIA - Seventeen mafia members, amongst which notorious boss Matteo Messina Denaro, are under investigation after a breakthrough in the murder case of Italian Supreme Court prosecutor Antonio Scopelliti, shot dead almost 28 years ago.

Scopelliti was murdered on 9 August 1991 while visiting family in Calabria. He was at the time preparing to argue against Cosa Nostra in court in the Maxi Trial, which is still to this day the biggest trial ever against the Sicilian mafia.

The murder is long thought to have been the result of a collaboration between ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, and the Sicilian mafia, but subsequent trials failed to convict any of suspects.

However, with the help of mafia informer Maurizio Avola, a breakthrough has been made in the case as the firearm thought to have been used in the murder was recovered from its hiding place in the Catania countryside.

The firearm will now be analysed for finger prints and will undergo a forensic ballistics examination to determine whether it matches evidence found on the murder scene.

Amongst those being investigated is renowned mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro. Messina Denaro has been a fugitive since 1993 but is thought to still be a prominent mafia boss.

Messina Denaro is one of seven Sicilians under investigation, alongside ten men linked to Calabrian group ‘Ndrangheta.

Scopelliti’s daughter Rosanna, coordinator for Antimafia movement Ammazzateci tutti, today spoke out on the breakthrough: “Truth and justice for the Calabrian people. For the nation. Because dad was never only ours. Dad was the patrimony of this country. A country for which he gave his life […]

“Killed after having turned down an enormous sum of money. Killed for having done his job with the proficiency that defined him. Killed leaving us, leaving a young me, a lesson that is hard to understand in its entirety: respect for one’s own dignity. A dignity that is not for sale […]

“Because this truth brings that redemption of a land that does not belong to Antonino Scopelliti’s murderers, but rather a land that has never stopped remembering. Never stopped engaging. Never stopped proudly believing that something good can come from the sacrifice of our victims.”

http://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/7864

Francesco Manzella, 34, with criminal records, was shot dead in Palermo

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/palermo-cannabis-mafia-sicily-drugs-a8830756.html

Palermo, cannabis and the mafia: How illegal drug control keeps high-strength marijuana out of Sicily's capital

The San Cocimo group was busted, 14 arrests in Catania for mafia association and extortion, fictitious heading of assets, usury, possession illegal arms and drugs crimes.
"Operation Z" is the name of the blitz that led to the imprisonment of the sons of the boss who lives in Gorizia, Maurizio Zuccaro: Rosario and Filippo, in addition to Luigi Gambino, 50, considered one of the leaders of the San Placido group.
From the investigation it emerged that among the ranks of the mafia group included the wife and children of Zuccaro and Gambino, who are disputed the role of promoters, leaders and in any case organizers of the San Cocimo group, as well as Angelo Testa - cousin of Zuccaro - Carmelo Giuffrida, Francesco Ragusa, Michele Colajanni, Giuseppe Verderame, Simone Giuseppe Piazza and Giovanni Fabio La Spina, as members of the team.

Vito Palazzolo free !

Vito Roberto Palazzolo, considered one of the biggest launderers of dirty money on behalf of Cosa Nostra, who remained a fugitive for years in South Africa where he accumulated a billion-dollar fortune, has returned free after having obtained the probationary award from the social services.

Palazzolo, born in Terrasini, in the province of Palermo and sentenced to 9 years for mafia association, served six years in prison.

Ten people were arrested in an anti-mafia operation of the Palermo mobile team. The accusations, in various ways, are of mafia association, extortion aggravated by the mafia method and drug trafficking.
Those arrested are considered exponents of the San Lorenzo - Tommaso Natale mafia. The investigations were coordinated by the Dda and made use, among other things, of the statements of a collaborator of justice.
The organization was also particularly active in the field of drug trafficking, so much so that one of those arrested, thanks to the help of Cosa Nostra, who paid regular sums of money according to the narcotic sold, established himself as the main drug dealer in the Zen district.

(ANSA) - Enna, March 26 - Carabinieri police staged a huge operation on Tuesday targeting a Cosa Nostra clan based in the Sicilian province of Enna, sources said. Police were executing 21 arrest warrants as part of the operation, which took place in the province as well as in other parts of Italy. The people arrested are suspected of crimes including mafia association, homicide and extortion. The bust was the result of a probe by investigators based in Caltanissetta into a Mafia family in the town of Pietraperzia.
This probe shed light on several crimes, including the murder of a man in July 2017.

Confiscated 40 mln assets to entrepreneur
Amodeo had been convicted of aiding and abetting

(ANSA) - PALERMO, APRIL 3 - The Dia di Trapani has notified the entrepreneur of Alcamo (TP), Giuseppe Amodeo, 64, who works in construction and in the tourism-hotel sector, and to his family, the decree of confiscation of their assets (for around 40 million euros) provided for by the fifth section of the Palermo Court of Appeal. For years he has moved his center of interests to Castelvetrano, where he managed a hotel located along the road that leads to the archaeological park of Selinunte. In the second half of the nineties Amodeo was involved in an investigation that brought to light the plots between the mafia and entrepreneurship in Trapani and was arrested along with other entrepreneurs. On 3 July 1998 he was charged with the crime of competition in mafia association, as considered near the mafia families of Trapani and Alcamo led by Vincenzo Virga and Antonino Melodia, held to life imprisonment. Amodeo negotiated a sentence of one year and four months for aiding real and personal aid, with the aggravating mafia.

Ministry prevents daughter of mafia boss from assuming role

https://www.lastampa.it/2019/04/05/...-role-H50vIMqAK2oKK4rz6uj3MI/pagina.html

No house arrest for Giovanni Brusca . For years the mafia collaborator of justice has never apologized to his victims or even to the relatives of the people he killed. The surveillance court of Rome writes this, explaining why it rejected the request for home detention by the lawyers of the former mafia boss of San Giuseppe Jato. Condemned for dozens of murders and massacres, including those of Capaci and Via D'Amelio , and for having kidnapped and killed the small Giuseppe Di Matteo , the son of a repentant, Brusca was arrested in May 1996. Two years later he began to collaborate with magistrates.

https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/...n_malta_fuel_smuggling_bust#.XLT3JuhKhPY

Defence attacks police intelligence on Malta fuel smuggling bust

The investigation of the super-fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro is at a turning point. The most dramatic. This morning police arrested two investigators accused of having passed confidential information on some Trapani mafia member of the godfather's entourage. They are the Colonel Marco Zappalà, an officer of the Carabinieri serving in the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate of Caltanissetta, and Giuseppe Barcellona, ​​a Carabinieri member working for the Compagnia di Castelvetrano.
The former mayor of Castelvetrano, Antonio Vaccarino, who was already convicted of drug trafficking and then became a confidant of the secret services, was also arrested.

Credits to Carmelo for original post.

That's why Messina Denaro is considered one of most dangerous wanted men in the world.

Mafia, corruption and wind power: this is how Nicastri shakes the Lega government - Five Stars

It is a mega investigation by the prosecutor's offices of Palermo and Rome that starts from Alcamo and Calatafimi and reaches the gates of the Lega and Cinque Stelle government, with the powerful Northern League undersecretary for Infrastructures Siri accused of pocketing a 30,000 euro bribe.
At the center the lord of the wind Vito Nicastri, considered close to Messina Denaro and already hit by a confiscation of more than one billion euros. In exchange for the bribe Siri would have advocated amendments in favor of wind power. "It makes me laugh," says the undersecretary, who has not resigned. To maintain relations with Nicastri, Paolo Arata, a Genoese mediator. Due to a disturbance in the interception it is not clear whether the bribe was only promised or even pocketed.
The other excellent suspects are the former provincial councilor and former manager of municipal technical offices Angelo Mistretta (currently head of the Urban Planning Department of the Municipality of Castellammare del Golfo), with him the entrepreneur of Calatafimi Francesco Isca and still beyond Vito Nicastri and Paolo Francesco Paolo Arata, Giacomo Causarano, Manlio Nicastri, Alberto Tinnirello also plowed.

Vito Nicastri was in house arrest already.

No public funeral for the boss Mario Campailla in Ragusa. The 56-year-old was considered the regent of the Stidda. Nicknamed Saponetta, the 56-year-old died this week in a sinister accident while aboard his motorcycle. Released from prison for two months.

Orazio Pino, turncoat and ex member of the Santapaola crime family was shot dead in the town of Chiavari (Genoa) where he lived; he left the witness protection program years ago

Credits to Carmelo.

Former state witness murdered in Chiavari
Victim helped investigation into 1990s Mafia war in Sicily

(ANSA) - Genoa, April 24 - A Sicilian man who was a former state's witness was killed in Chiavari, allegedly shot in the neck with a small-caliber pistol from close range. Pino Orazio's body was found outside his car in a supermarket parking lot.
The 70-year-old victim was an important State witness who helped investigators get to the bottom of a bloody mafia war that took place in Catania in the 1990s.

Sicilian Mafia snitch shot dead in parking lot – Testified against Catania’s notorious Santapaola Clan in 1990s http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profil...ot-dead-in-parking-lot-testified-against

The Public Prosecutor's Office requested this week the indictment of 18 people, including the big men of the Noce crime family.
Giovanni Musso, 48, had waited his turn. In the blitz of last year police reconstructed his rise to power in the Noce district. A power also exercised by requiring a priest to 'bless' a neighborhood party organized just to make money. After joining the old regent Giuseppe Castelluccio, Musso would become the new headmaster.