After a series of raids, Italian police charged over 130 suspected mafia members with extortion, drug trafficking, and attempted murder.
In a massive sting against the Sicilian mafia in Palermo on Tuesday, about 130 people were taken into custody, showing that despite setbacks in recent decades, the mafia has remained a powerful criminal organization.
The Palermo-based mafia syndicate “Cosa Nostra” terrorized Italy in the 1980s and 1990s, but the Calabrian “Ndrangheta” has since surpassed them as the most potent mob in Europe.
According to a statement from Carabinieri police, the suspects who were arrested on Tuesday were accused of a number of offenses, including drug trafficking, attempted murder, extortion, unlawful online gambling, and unlawful firearm possession.
33 suspects who were already incarcerated for other offenses received additional arrest warrants.
According to police, investigations showed that Palermo’s mafia families, particularly in the area of drug trafficking, coordinate their operations throughout the city and its province, just as they did during the heyday of Cosa Nostra.
In contrast to the years when a faction from Corleone, a town outside of Palermo that was the birthplace of infamous bosses Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, controlled inner city families, they claimed, authority had returned.
Employing encrypted cell phones that are smuggled into prisons to enable imprisoned bosses to continue exercising their power, modern bosses use technology to run their businesses, according to investigators.
The Carabinieri stated that Cosa Nostra still draws young people despite being undermined by law enforcement operations, citing one case in which a new recruit received “mafia lessons” from an older associate.
In a police statement, the young man claimed that the prospective mentor gave him “specific instructions, inviting him to take as an example his conduct towards people to be subjected to extortion, and advising him on how to relate with mafia leaders.”
In an article on X, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni praised Tuesday’s arrests, saying they dealt Cosa Nostra “a very hard blow” and sent a strong message that “the fight against the mafia has not stopped and will not stop.”
