everything belongs to him, these businessmen are just his frontman who built an economic empire with his money

Here we go. In a huge operation palermo police busted the new Cupola, 46 arrested.
Settimo Mineo is the heir of Riina !

Italian Mafia 'godfather' Settimo Mineo held in Sicily raid

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46438789

Mineo was elected boss of bosses on May 29, in the first Commission meeting in 25 years.

This is big news, as the police focuses on 'Ndrangheta the Sicilian Mafia had time to rebuild a little

Mineo was a great enemy of Stefano Bontade, the prince of Villagrazia, and had escaped the ambushes that cost the lives of his brothers Giuseppe and Antonino.
He was the ambassador in relations with the other mafia families, the businessman, the control of illicit contracts and contacts with the American mafia.

there's gotta be a relation to manfredi mineo somewhere here i assume

They got Francesco Colletti. Settimo Mineo is known for having a leveled head. Him being picked as Boss of Bosses shows the families choosing more wisely instead of having a madman at the helm.

The death of Totò Riina was a turning point, they say. There was the sense of closing with the past and the beginning of a new era.
The Cupola would meet periodically to deal with pressing issues. In six months they managed to reorganize under traditional rules.
Mineo’s election also showed that the center of power had returned from Corleone to the Sicilian capital.

Although police arrested only 4 of the Commission there were all the capimandamento of the province of Palermo (14 or 15) according to wiretaps, only the capimandamento attended the meeting (probably in Passo di Rigano neighborhood), the others remained outside.

A close friend of Tomasso Buscetta has been arrested in Brazil for cocaine trafficking to Europe.

Lelio Paolo Gigante, 84, received members of the São Paulo Faction of the notorious First Command of the Capital (PCC) with samples of cocaine coming from Bolivia. According to police, he is not a member of the PCC, but the organization was part of his role as suppliers.

Gigante, according to the police, was the link between the São Paulo faction and the traffickers in Europe.

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201812051070422138-italy-mafia-crackdown/

'Mafia Can't Become Extinct Because It's a Type of Behaviour' - Criminologist

https://www.thelocal.it/20181210/godfather-arrest-a-crucial-blow-to-italys-mafia-say-police

'Godfather' arrest a crucial blow to Italy's mafia, say police

The Trapani mafia could get an advance because of this Palermo bust. They have probably 900 men.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/a...ected-accomplices-of-sicilian-mafia-boss

Police Investigate Suspected Accomplices of Sicilian Mafia Boss

In the past week nine people were arrested in Palermo over illegal gambling and evidence that Cosa Nostra bosses were rigging horse races. These are coaches, drivers and managers of stables. According to police the Hippodrome of Palermo was managed entirely by Cosa Nostra since at least the beginning of the 1980s.

They moved racing on streets too. There are bunch of videos on YouTube

One of their top horses Gloria Zuccaro.

Summer 1995. Dattilo, province of Trapani. Meeting between four mafia bosses. The question: "Graviano sees Berlusconi?". The answer: "Yes". The revelation is of the collaborator of justice, Giovanni Brusca, who "credits" the story to Matteo Messina Denaro, during an interrogation made on October 16 in front of the attorney of Palermo, Francesco Lo Voi, and to the adjunct Marzia Sabella. As reported by Brusca, Giuseppe Graviano would have met Silvio Berlusconi. Not only that: the boss of Brancaccio would have even noticed a watch on the wrist of the former premier worth 500 million.

During the summit in the Trapanese the capimafia spoke about the hypothesis of kidnapping the son of Pietro Grasso, then deputy prosecutor of the national anti-mafia directorate. Then the speech is turned on the "beautiful life, the clothing" and especially on the watches. The repentant made the minutes that Matteo Messina Denaro said: Giuseppe Graviano "saw one on the wrist of Berlusconi, which was worth 500 million". "I - says Brusca - I asked: 'But why, do they see?' 'Yes,' replied Messina Denato

The story was told by the newspaper La Stampa. "It seemed a secondary thing", then Brusca was justified. The report was sent to the Public Prosecutor's Office of Palermo, which will represent the accusation of the process of Appeal on the negotiation. As the Daily Fact argues, "the story of Brusca dates back to a period when the first Berlusconi government had already fallen, while Graviano was detained, having been arrested in January 1994. It is not clear from Brusca's story if the boss Messina Messina Brancaccio met the former premier as a prisoner or in the previous period, when he spent his hiding in Milan, where he was arrested ".

For the judges of the first degree the former premier knew of contacts between Dell'Utri and the mafia and he paid money to the clans until December 1994. Graviano is currently being investigated by the Palermo prosecutor in the procedure for extracting the negotiation. Recently he met in prison Fiammetta Borsellino, the daughter of the magistrate assassinated in Via d'Amelio, to whom he said: "Everyone says I was dating Berlusconi". To then add: "More than I was my cousin who frequented him".

The boss Colletti collaborates with the magistrates ! He had been arrested in the raid on December 4th and is a member of the Cupola.

https://www.lasicilia.it/news/paler...-lui-a-far-scoprire-la-nuovo-cupola.html

The Sicilian banker who left the City to fight the mafia

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...are-giacalone-left-london-to-fight-mafia

Italy Confiscates $40 Million in Assets Linked to Corleone Mafia

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/9063-italy-confiscates-40-million-in-assets-linked-to-corleone-mafia

According to one expert, the fact that they had to resort to old Mineo exposes a generational problem in Cosa Nostra "The average age of its members (many left the jails in recent years) is much higher than that of the 'Ndrangheta or the Camorra. It remains to be seen if there are any young people capable now of taking the reins."

according to who? lol in the latests years there had been tons of mafia indictments with tons of young people, even more than ndrangheta
also ndrangheta is limited to the fact the members are all related and from the same blood family, cosa nostra has a much higher recruitment pool
the average age of the bosses is higher because it's a vertical structure, the ndrangheta boss of bosses oppedisano was 80 years old too
camorra bosses for example are younger because they have a horizontal structure and a more fluid organization

No expert on the Mafia shares the optimism of the Italian minister, but the fact is that the illustrious Sicilian Cosa Nostra has been in a very difficult situation for some time. Especially after 46 important arrests at the beginning of this month.

"The Cosa Nostra is weakened and in a pending state," said the antimafia judge Francesco Del Bene from the office of the National Antimafia Directorate of DNA in Rome. Del Bene himself contributed to the weakening of the Cosa Nostra. He had been public prosecutor in Palermo for many years and was partly responsible for the arrest of the Mafia boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo in 2007 and a year later, during the Perseo operation, of a hundred Mafiosi of the Cosa Nostra in 2008.

Leadership
"After the death of Totò Riina last year, the big question was who would take over the leadership within the Cosa Nostra. Thanks to the arrest at the beginning of this month of Settimo Mineo and his accomplices, the structure of the "commission" (the top) of the Cosa Nostra has been rolled up. It has also been shown that the era of the Corleonesi (Liggio, Riina, Bagarella etc.) has ended.

The Corleonesi used to take over the power of the Palermitans in the Cosa Nostra through a coup d'état. Fortunately, their era, in which they made use of mafios terrorism, has passed, "said Del Bene. "As long as Riina was alive, he remained the boss. It is possible that he could send signals to the outside world from the prison despite the strict monitoring and strict rules. With the arrest at the beginning of this month of Mineo it has become clear that the power has returned to the Palermitans after the death of Riina. "

Members
De Bene states that it is difficult to estimate how many members Cosa Nostra now has. "In the past, the initiation ritual, where an oath was made and an image of the Virgin Mary was burned, was mandatory. Now that is no longer always the case. The Cosa Nostra must recruit new people because of the many arrests, also simple thieves who have no charisma and experience and are more easily regretful. "

The situation is therefore favorable in the battle between the Italian state and the Cosa Nostra. "It is an organization that, after many setbacks, desperately tries to settle again and to re-assemble itself with role distributions. That went wrong because of the many arrests. The Cosa Nostra has lost the great power it used to have with the Corleonesi. "There are also many ways to deal with the Cosa Nostra. "We have done a lot of arrests of mafiosi who actually go to jail for a long time, we have regret opticians, we can take telephone calls and confiscate goods from the Mafiosi. The latter is also fundamental. The state makes their property, such as real estate, available to the community or public authorities. "

But the Cosa Nostra still exists. "She is present everywhere in Sicily. There is also a lot of consensus for the Cosa Nostra, it is still widespread within the Sicilian mentality. This must be combated with proper education. But that is not enough. An alternative to the Cosa Nostra should also be offered to young people ", states Del Bene.

Big fish
The big fish, Matteo Messina Denaro, is still fugitive. He has been wanted by justice for 25 years. "He not only receives protection from the Cosa Nostra, but also from others. There is a lot of infiltration of him in the province of Trapani "(in the west of Sicily), according to Del Bene.

Del Bene explains that the Cosa Nostra comes in addition to money in other ways to money. "She deserves extortion, tenders, infiltration into companies that are imposed on people, various forms of drug trafficking (although the lion's share is the Ndrangheta from the southern Italian region of Calabria) and in recent years a lot in online gambling, that's hard to figure out. "

The percentage of stores and businesses that pay protection fees in Palermo is very high despite the fight against the Cosa Nostra. "They now ask less money, but they ask as many people as possible," says Del Bene. "Cosa Nostra does that because it needs liquidity. She must maintain the prisoners and their family members. If she does not do that then the risk increases that they will cooperate with the judiciary. "

That is one of the weak points of the Cosa Nostra. "She has a lot more regret optics than the Ndrangheta, which mainly consists of family members who will never tell each other. Cosa Nostra also has many other members who are separate from the family relationship. "

https://theshiftnews.com/2018/12/28...ia-in-foreign-countries-malta-tops-list/

Report maps presence of Italian mafia in foreign countries, Malta tops list

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8021019/eu-officials-lose-1m-day-fraudsters-mafia-bosses/

EU SILLY BUGGERS Bungling EU officials lose £1.1m a DAY by handing taxpayers’ cash to fraudsters and Mafia bosses

The fifth section of the Court of Appeal of Palermo has revoked the confiscation of assets for seven million euro from Mario Messina Denaro, 65, cousin of the fugitive boss of Cosa Nostra Matteo Messina Denaro, and of his wife, Benvenuta Anna Maria Forte, 66.