15 people arrested in anti-mafia sweep

Finance police on Thursday executed arrest warrants against 15 people suspected of mafia association, usury, drugs crimes and money laundering as part of a nationwide anti-mafia operation coordinated by the authorities in the Sicilian city of Catania.
In total 26 people have been placed under investigation in the probe.
Arrests were carried out in the regions of Sicily, Campania, Tuscany and Friuli Venezia Giulia.
In all, 120 finance police officers were deployed.

https://www.ansa.it/english/news/20...3549c26-1ad4-45e4-bfb2-b7a4028aabe6.html

Somehow I feel Cosa Nostra in Catania and Messina is still underrated compared to western Sicily, maybe because they were brought in the fold many years later.

I made a thread on the other board expressing much the same sentiment. The Catania police investigations always reveal these huge operations.

I said I thought Catania to be amongst the strongest families. The guys took it like i said Catania is stronger than......I dunno.... the Whole of Palermo or the whole of Trapani or Agrigento. There's ONE, excuse me.....TWO (?) official families in Catania. With the Capello- Carrateddi independent?

What exactly are the Cursoti?

some of the arrested in the anti-mafia operation "Oleandro" against the Santapaola-Ercolano family

in Catania city there are two Cosa Nostra families (Santapaola and Mazzei) with branches all over the province and out of the province; in the province, in addition to the branches of the aforementioned families, there are two other Cosa Nostra families based in the towns of Caltagirone and Ramacca.
Then there is the Laudani clan, a sort of offshoot of the Santapaola family and the independent clans (Cappello, Cursoti, Pillera-Puntina)

The Cursoti's top boss is said to be Giuseppe 'Pippu u maritatu' Garozzo.

The 'return' to the field of the old mafia boss would not have been 'welcomed' by members of rival clans who in June 2011 attempted to kill him, injuring him and another person, in an ambush in Misterbianco. And he would organize himself to react. Garozzo was released despite being sentenced to life imprisonment due to a procedural problem, as the chief prosecutor Giovanni Salvi had explained on the day the boss was arrested: the life sentence had been imposed on him after his extradition from Germany in 1991, which was was given a sentence of 20 years' imprisonment.

Catania, is considered the most dangerous location in Western Europe. It is also known as the "black city" LOL

Catania is worse than Palermo, sure Palermo has parts of city that are places you want to avoid like Zen, but overall Catania takes the top spot. But i wouldn't rate it most dangerous city in Europe, you have Naples that is much worse imo, also parts of UK, France.

I think the most dangerous city in Europe is London, i felt insicure over there, especially at night

I visited London a few times, because i had close friend living there, there a lot of low-lifes in London who will pull up a knife and rob you. In general you are pretty safe in London, but there are parts of city you want to avoid, for example south London.

I lived near King's Cross Station for 6 months and it wasn't very safe, but yes, it depends on the area

No city is all bad, but they have all bad areas even in a country like Sweden.

Santapaola clan, the mafia summit at the farm (06.05.16)
The video interceptions of the carabinieri during a meeting of the new dome of Cosa Nostra in Catania

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4923ak

Palermo, drugs at Vucciria with the approval of the bosses: nine arrests
THE BLITZ
by Riccardo Lo Verso
2 MIN OF READING
JANUARY 23, 2024, 09:34

PALERMO – In the Vucciria jungle you can find drugs of all kinds. Cocaine, crack, hashish and marijuana. The narcotics supply chain reeks of the mafia in the neighborhood made famous by the hand of Renato Guttuso. During the night , a blitz , yet another, by the Carabinieri of the provincial command wipes out the criminal association that would have managed the business: from supply to drug dealing.

Nine people were arrested, eight ended up in prison and one under house arrest ( HERE THE NAMES ). The judge for preliminary investigations applied the obligation to report to the barracks on a woman at the request of the Palermo Prosecutor's Office. The pushers passed around a cell phone for orders. The coded drug was called “beer” or “car.”

Mafia control
Alcohol and drugs, a mix that appeals to those who crowd the historic market area which at night turns into a smelly pocket. Those who deal in Vucciria have always had to be authorized by the Porta Nuova bosses . On all the Lo Presti and Di Giovanni . Until 2022, according to the reconstruction of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate, Leonardo Marino would have been managing the square, arrested in the blitz called "Vento" and now reached by a new precautionary custody order. The operation revealed the role of Giuseppe Incontrera killed by gunshots at Zisa in June 2022. His killer was sentenced to life imprisonment in recent days . Marino is the nephew of Teresa, wife of the boss Tommaso Lo Presti and who also ended up in legal trouble a few years ago.

Group managed 3 drug dealing squares in Catania, order for 14

https://newsrnd.com/life/2024-01-24...order-for-14---last-hour.HkwZZfmRta.html


the traffick was managed by Lorenzo Saitta (Santapaola family) from the prison of Naples through a cellphone

according to the turncoat Alessio Puccio (Porta Nuova mandamento) all the drug dealers in Palermo pay a tax to Cosa Nostra based on their earnings
https://www.palermotoday.it/cronaca/mafia/arresti-zisa-droga-spaccio-pentito-retroscena.html

Thanks for sharing this, very interesting article. We knew the mafia/camorra/'ndrangheta have total control of south.

Drug square at via Cipressi made 30,000-35,000 euros a day. Thats million a month from just one square.

According to prosecutor of Palermo Maurizio De Lucia, Matteo Messina Denaro was stopped by police at checkpoint in Trapani 7 years ago, but they didn't recognize him.

JANUARY 16, 2024
06:02
Why Matteo Messina Denaro was not elected head of Cosa Nostra and what is happening now in Sicily
Matteo Messina Denaro, the last mafia murderer with life sentences to be arrested, had not been elected head of Cosa Nostra. He wasn't officially the boss of bosses, but he acted like one.
By Giorgia Venturini


"With the arrest of Matteo Messina Denaro, Cosa Nostra was not defeated". It is one of the first things that the investigators clarified in the days following January 16 last year when the head of the Castelvetrano district ended after 30 years.

It's true, Cosa Nostra was not defeated but from then on something changed : it is impossible to forget the joy of the CrimOr and GIS carabinieri outside the La Maddalena clinic in Palermo where they managed to identify and arrest Matteo Messina Denaro. Just as it is impossible to forget the citizens present there by chance thanking and embracing the soldiers .

And again: the moments of that day are indelible when Italy managed to look one of the most wanted men in the world in the face. On January 16, 2023, what many now thought was a ghost crossed the door of the ROS barracks in Palermo and ended his escape.

READ ALSO
One year after the arrest of the boss Matteo Messina Denaro: Roberto Saviano talks about Operation Sunset

Matteo Messina Denaro in the ROS barracks in Palermo a few minutes after the arrest
Matteo Messina Denaro, at least in recent years and at least from what has emerged so far from the investigations, was hiding in his Sicily protected by his last relatives and loyalists that the Prosecutor's Office and the police had not yet managed to arrest.

The Trapani boss was hiding in his Campobello di Mazara. As? " Like a tree planted in a forest ", as he himself explains in the interrogation before the chief prosecutor of Palermo Maurizio De Lucia and the deputy prosecutor Paolo Guido quoting an old Jewish proverb. From his home he still had the reins of his mandate and managed the affairs of the criminal organization.


Matteo Messina Denaro's apartment in Campobello di Mazara, Trapani
Yet Matteo Messina Denaro, the last Cosa Nostra mass murderer with life sentences to be arrested, had not been elected head of Cosa Nostra. He was not officially the boss of bosses, a name most recently associated with Totò Riina. But why wasn't the Trapani boss head of the Mafia Cupola? And why wasn't he even after 2017, the year in which Riina died?

Because officially Messina Denaro was not the head of Cosa Nostra
Simple. Cosa Nostra is an organization that has precise rules and a pyramid structure. Similar to that of a state. And precisely because of these rules Matteo Messina Denaro was not officially the head of the criminal organization. "Because the head of Cosa Nostra, according to mafia rules, must be from Palermo", explains Palermo's chief prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia to Fanpage.it .

Pietro Grasso , former national anti-mafia prosecutor and side judge in the Maxitrial against Cosa Nostra, also explains it : " Matteo Messina Denaro was never formally the head of Cosa Nostra , nor the successor of Riina or Provenzano, because the mafia maintains its rules , its traditions, adapts to the socio-economic and political evolution of the country.The head of Cosa Nostra can therefore only be the head of the provincial commission of Palermo, while Matteo Messina Denaro was the head of the province of Trapani, made up of several of a mafia mandate". And even in an interrogation before the magistrates the Castelvetrano boss will clarify the concept that he is not from Palermo.

Messina Denaro was equally considered the head of Cosa Nostra
True, formally Matteo Messina Denaro was not the head of Cosa Nostra, but he was considered as such. Why? Prosecutor De Lucia explains it: " Matteo Messina Denaro was a leader raised to be a leader . His father Francesco was an important exponent of the Trapani Cosa Nostra. He knew from a young age that he was destined to be a leader. From Salvatore Riina the Trapani boss acquires the knowledge needed to command Cosa Nostra. Understanding what his destiny is, he creates an aura of lightness around himself, strengthened by the fact that he is uncatchable and has been for decades."

Matteo Messina Denaro
After the capture of Bernardo Provenzano in 2006, Messina Denaro is the last boss close to the Corleonesi and for this reason "undoubtedly from the point of view of charisma, recognition and authority he has become the point of reference for the entire organisation", De Lucia specifies Fanpage.it. Matteo Messina Denaro may never have been elected head of the Cosa Nostra dome but he acted as if he were: he managed affairs even between multiple provinces and boasted of never asking for protection money . The boss knew he could count on his authority. It was his relatives , his loyalists and local entrepreneurs who gave up part of their monthly earnings to finance his fugitive status. And his was a golden fugitive .

What is happening now within Cosa Nostra
Elected leader or non-leader Matteo Messina Denaro died on 25 September 2023 from colon cancer, after a few months at 41 bis. What is happening now within Cosa Nostra? But above all, will the Palermo elite meet to appoint the new boss of bosses?

To answer these questions we need to understand the pyramid structure of Cosa Nostra well. And once again it is the prosecutor De Lucia who explains it: "At the top of the Sicilian criminal organization there is a commission made up of the heads of the districts of the various territories of Sicily. The dome is an essential structure: if there is no organization, the organization is in difficulty. As it is now: traces of the last meetings of the commissions date back to 1993 even if over the years, even recent ones, there have been attempts to reunite and recompose the Palermo dome".

According to investigations by the Prosecutor's Office, these attempts would not have led to the formation of a new dome. But it is clear that the will is there: Cosa Nostra knows well that a summit is needed to organize itself. The rules of Cosa Nostra never fall : "Such as that of extortion: anyone can ask for protection money in a neighborhood of Palermo as long as the money from the extortion goes to finance the mafia family of that neighborhood", specifies De Lucia.

And if Cosa Nostra tries to reorganize at high levels, what is happening now in Trapani after the death of Matteo Messina Denaro? Here elected or not elected he was the boss of bosses in all respects.

"The Cosa Nostra mandates – adds Pietro Grasso – still have their representatives today. There are new people who will lead the mafia in the Trapani area so let's not delude ourselves that after the death of Matteo Messina Denaro, a leader, an organization will disappear that it is so branched and structured. There are those who will continue the boss's activities. What is certain is that the four Cosa Nostra districts that make up the province of Trapani will have to elect Messina Denaro's successor. The heirs will continue to follow his strategy mafia: no more violence, no more visibility but business, business, business ."

Who the heir of Matteo Messina Denaro is is still not clear. Part of his family, however - including those who have never ended up under arrest and those who have finished serving their sentences - are still in Campobello di Mazara and Castelvetrano.

continua su: https://www.fanpage.it/attualita/pe...ra-e-cosa-sta-succedendo-ora-in-sicilia/
https://www.fanpage.it/

but i think Buscetta said In the past Andrea Fazio was the boss of bosses and he was from Trapani

this is a good article and poses questions that have long been asked and either been ignored or not answered properly. my knowledge of cosa nostra is not up to others on here so if they seem ridiculous be gentle.

1. who succeeded riina post 1993 as boss of bosses...if indeed that was the title riina held...or did riina retain that title up until his 2017 death.

2. if riina did not hold title after 1993 was provenzano the new b.o.b.

3. not a question but i thought settimo mineo was the new head of the cupola post 2017.

the title boss of bosses has long led to a lot of confusion both in sicily and america. i will not engage in the debate about america as i believe that title is obsolete and has been for a long time. but there appears to be still, confusion about the difference between boss of bosses and head of cupola.

I am not sure about the current situation, but I think that the chairman of the Cupola isn't necessarily the boss of bosses in terms of absolute power. For example, in the 1970s Giuseppe Calderone from Catania was the chairman for some time at least, but Catania wasn't the most powerful province; Palermo was always the strongest one, although the Palermo representative wasn't always the formal chairman. However, Toto' Riina held what was closest to absolute power, both formally and de-facto, I think. What exactly happened to the power balances after his arrest is a good question though...

Riina was probably the only one elected after he took out all rivals, he manipulated the Cupola. In all other cases, it's just a title used by law enforcement, the media and the public in general to describe a Mafia boss who exerts significant influence on how the Mafia should run.

They don't need a boss of bosses perse 'Ndrangheta never had one. The do need to restore the Cupola.

THE DECLARATION
Axis with the 'Ndrangheta, «Cosa Nostra strategy to regain strength»
The chief prosecutor of Palermo De Lucia issues the warning
Published on: 01/27/2024 – 3.15pm
PALERMO «Cosa Nostra is experiencing a moment of crisis, a moment that must be seized. We must not give in to the idea that the mafia is over and we must understand that the resources available to justice are limited therefore the counteraction must be planned and rationalised. The mafia aims to become powerful again and to do so it must strengthen its military force, an objective that requires money and which it tries to achieve with drug trafficking thanks to a renewed axis with the ' Ndrangheta '. Thus the Palermo prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia during the inauguration of the judicial year at the courthouse of the Sicilian capital.

No one succeeded Riina post 1993, he was the only 'boss of bosses', Provenzano was most influential individual and a lot of important decisions ended with his word, but he was not boss of bosses. After Minneo was arrested, Giuseppe Calvaruso took place as 'top' member of Pagliarelli. Francesco Inzerillo used to meet Minneo, Minneo even planned trip to US before his arrest, he was ally of Rotolo who was ally of Corleonesi , in fact Rotolo didn't want Inzerillo's to come back , so looks like Settimo Mineo also switched sides.

When Salvatore Lo Piccolo was arrested in 2007 magistrates believed he was the new "boss of bosses". But like Denaro he was never elected by the Cupola.

I've been trying to talk about this for so long... I barely enjoy the subject anymore. People just assume I'm obsessed with drugs...lmao...

I wonder about the role of Giovanni Motisi, someone says he has retired, someone says he has the last word and someone else says he is dead

drugs are important, but the main target of mafia-type organizations, at least Cosa Nostra, it is the control of the territory through extortions