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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.
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, which controls the bulk of cocaine flowing into Europe.
