130 People Arrested in Largest Sicilian Mafia Crackdown in Decades by Italian Police
Italian police detained 130 people on Tuesday in an operation against the Sicilian mafia in Palermo, and Italy’s national anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, highlighted that mafia bosses in high security prisons were still able to pass on “criminal directives” to those on the outside.
The carabinieri—Italy’s national gendermerie—stated that the anti-mafia operation resulted in restrictive measures being issued for 183 individuals, 36 of whom were already incarcerated.
It was the most significant crackdown on the Sicilian mafia, also known as La Cosa Nostra, since the 1990s.
Since the 1990s, the Sicilian mafia has been overshadowed by the ‘Ndrangheta, based in Calabria on the Italian mainland.
Speaking on Tuesday, Italy’s national anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, emphasized that incarcerated mobsters had the ability to communicate and spread criminal directives within the high-security prison system.
Jailed Mafiosi Video Calls
The chief prosecutor of Palermo, Maurizio de Lucia, pointed out that mobile devices, including video calls, in prisons undermined crime prevention efforts, making it difficult to distinguish between being inside or outside the prison.
De Lucia mentioned that the mafia were using encrypted cellphones, often smuggled into jails.
He stated, “Two things are important: one is that the organization knows that in order to become strong again it needs a central direction, a commission, and it can’t achieve this. The other is that it has adapted to this difficulty by connecting the mandamenti [areas controlled by a mafia family or its affiliates] through the technological tools we’ve talked about.”
Tuesday’s raids primarily targeted the Palermo neighborhoods of Pagliarelli, Porta Nuova, Tommaso Natale-San Lorenzo, Bagheria, and Santa Maria del Gesu.
The carabinieri mentioned that families in Palermo had regained control after years of dominance by a faction from Corleone, the town outside Palermo that was the birthplace of notorious bosses Toto Riina and Bernardo “The Tractor” Provenzano.
Riina, captured in 1993, died in prison in 2017, while his successor, Provenzano, was arrested in 2006 and passed away in jail in 2016.
Settimino Mineo (C), jeweler and new head of the Sicilian mafia, is escorted by carabinieri as he exits a police station after his arrest, in Palermo, Italy, on Dec. 4, 2018. Alessandro Fucarini/AFP/Getty Images
Cosa Nostra ‘Never Truly Vanished’
Anna Sergi, a professor of criminology and organized crime studies at the University of Essex in England, mentioned on her Substack that Cosa Nostra has never completely disappeared, being able to adapt and maintain a significant role, especially in the drug trade.
However, Sergi clarified in an email to The Epoch Times that Mineo was not the leader of Cosa Nostra, stating, “There is no known boss.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
