Also public tenders and vote-buying are important, they make a lot of money through political corruption.

thank you strax that clears it up. riina held the b.o.b. title until 2017 and continued to influence cosa nostra matters. after his death the powers that be in palermo began to re group and bring power back to palermo which is historically where it belongs. as far as denaro is considered then although being a powerful and respected leader among many in sicily he was not the overall boss of anything but his own cosca. i was following the many arrests related to denaro over the years and most revolved around his family and very close associates but not in large criminal rackets but in keeping denaro hidden, laundering his money, communicating with other families.

We have discussed him few months ago, that guy is a ghost. I have no idea what to think, some informants say he is alive, some say he is dead. I don't think they will ever catch him if he is alive. When MMD was on the run , it was known that he is alive and somewhere in Sicily , while on Motisi nothing is known. Boss Giuseppe Calvaruso was caught on tape saying Motisi have the last word, the last evidence of Motisi was found at 2007 in villa in Casteldaccia, police raided villa and found out that Motisi celebrated his daughter's birthday there , they also found photographs. Since then nothing

Motisi has to have some kind of high level protection, I believe he's alive he's only 65 years old if he stays healthy he could be a force the next 20 years lol.

Messina Denaro was the provincial boss of Trapani, like a boss of bosses of Trapani province

Denaro was almost a legend in Sicilian mafia, he would influence and give orders to other bosses, few years ago when mafia wanted to kill Nino Di Matteo , Matteo Messina Denaro said that same people who wanted Falcone and Borsellino dead ordered it and that it has to be done, they were about to do it, so that shows how much Denaro was powerful.

The real power in Sicily and in Calabria are masonic lodges, who also protected Denaro. So if he has protection, its them. Something like P2 or whatever.

yes, public works and political connections are fundamental

i bet the "same people" were especially Berlusconi and Dell'Utri, but i could be wrong

After the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano on 11 April 2006, Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Matteo Messina Denaro were thought to be the new leaders of Cosa Nostra.[7][10] However, the pizzini (small slips of paper used to communicate with other mafiosi to avoid phone conversations) found at Provenzano's hide-out indicated that Provenzano's joint deputies in Palermo were Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Antonio Rotolo, capo mandamento of Pagliarelli, a Corleonesi loyalist in the days of Totò Riina. In a message referring to an important decision for Cosa Nostra, Provenzano told Rotolo: "It's up to you, me and Lo Piccolo to decide this thing."[11]

Probably, if not them directly, it's the "group" they belong to. But those 2 were involved somehow for sure.

Looks like the Mafia is now rooting for Meloni's party.

they always root for the winners

They don't really have or care about political views, they just root for whoever is likely to win so they the benefits.

Meloni became the PM because most of the south (including the mafias) voted for her.

Blitz against the Cosa Nostra family based in the town of Carini (Palermo), police arrests 5 mobsters included the reputed acting boss John Pipitone, 42, son of the boss Giovan Battista; they are charged with mafia association, extortions and illegal possession of weapons

The Ciarellis' agreement with the mafia to block the Casalesi's aims in Latina

From the revelations of the collaborators emerges the close agreement with the Sicilian Lo Piccolo clan to maintain control of illicit activities in the capital

The criminal fame of the Ciarelli family went beyond the borders of the Pontine capital, reaching as far as Sicily . According to the revelations of one of the collaborators of justice, in fact, the Campo Boario group had even managed to make an agreement with the Lo Piccolo clan to face and block the expansion of the Casalesi in Latina.

In 1996 the latter had tried to reach an agreement through Ettore Mendico who had shown up at Carmine Ciarelli's house through Matteo Baldascini in Latina who had given support to the Casalesi. The objective was for the Campo Boario group to ally themselves with Francesco Schiavone's clan who had designs on the Pontine capital. This proposal was not accepted and Fur and Luigi Ciarelli, again according to Renato Pugliese's story, went to Borgo Carso, where Baldascini lived to intimidate him: they fired an entire magazine in an attempt to kill him but failed. Then they even went to denounce the Casalesi.

In the meantime, Carmine Ciarelli asked for the intercession of the Lo Piccolo mafia family of Palermo to block the expansionist aims of the Casalesi on the Pontine territory, a mediation which was successful. “The Ciarelli family – the repentant told the DDA magistrates – gave hospitality in Latina for about a year to two fugitives from the family in 1994 or 1995”.

This alliance shows, according to investigators, how the Ciarelli family was also considered and respected by other clans so much so that they managed "to maintain control of the city compared to the attempt of other mafia groups to swallow up the territory, monopolizing its illicit activities".

Cassation: Filippo Guttadauro, brother-in-law of the boss Messina Denaro, remains at 41 bis
AMTwo thousand January 31, 2024



Despite having finished serving his sentence eight years ago (a total sentence of 18 years) the boss Filippo Guttadauro (pictured) , 72 years old, remains at 41 bis in the "workhouse" where he has been since 2015. He decided it the first section of the Cassation, which considers Guttadauro socially dangerous and for this reason rejected the request that the mafia boss originally from Bagheria (Palermo), but resident for years in Castelvetrano (Trapani) had presented through his lawyer daughter, Lorenza Guttadauro . Guttadauro is the husband of Rosalia Messina Denaro , arrested last March: therefore he is the brother-in-law of Matteo Messina Denaro , the super fugitive captured on 16 January 2023 and died in L'Aquila prison on 25 September. Rosalia is in turn in the cell because she is considered to be a supporter and supporter in her brother's thirty-year escape, while Filippo until 11 April 2006 had been in direct contact with Bernardo Provenzano , also a fugitive (for 43 years) until the day he was captured in the Montagna dei Cavalli hideout. There, in Corleone (Palermo) the police found numerous pizzini from the correspondence between Provenzano and Messina Denaro, in which reference was made to a person indicated with the number 121, later identified as Filippo Guttadauro , the intermediary between the two mafia bosses and the person responsible for a series of other crimes linked to the activity of Cosa Nostra. The family situation, the wife linked to the super fugitive like the rest of the family, had led the Trieste surveillance court, on 24 May 2022 and then on 16 January last year, to confirm both the workhouse (a measure which is defined as a "white life sentence", given that it can be extended without limits) and 41 bis, i.e. hard prison, extended by another three years, therefore expiring in January 2026.

Source: Agi

Mafia at Arenella, boss Gaetano Scotto and the brother of agent Schifani's widow sentenced

The trial arises from the "White Shark" investigation of 2020, in which it emerged that the newly freed mafioso would have regained control of the clan and also received citizenship income. The procession for the patron saint of the village would also have stopped for him. 20 years were imposed, 12 on his brother Francesco Paolo and on the other defendant, Giuseppe Costa

Not even the patron saint of Arenella, Sant'Antonio, could pass if he, the boss Gaetano Scotto, had not been present. And even the "launch" would have been placed on a boat on which Scotto and his girlfriend would have boarded. This was one of the background to the DIA "White Shark" operation which in 2020 led to the new arrest of the mafioso. Now the boss has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, while one of his brothers Francesco Paolo, and Giuseppe Costa, the brother of Rosaria Costa , the widow of Giovanni Falcone's escort agent, Vito Schifani (who disowned him after the 'arrest), each was inflicted 12 years' imprisonment.

The sentence was issued by the fifth section of the court, chaired by Donatella Puleo, who accepted the requests of the deputy prosecutors Giorgia Righi and Amelia Luise (now at the European Public Prosecutor's Office). According to the prosecution, Gaetano Scotto, who is also on trial for the murder of agent Nino Agostino and his wife Ida Castellucci in 1989, after being freed in 2016, took back command of the Arenella clan. And he would not have liked the management carried out in his absence at all because his assets would have been squandered.

From the investigations it emerged that everyone would turn to Scotto to solve their problems, even the most trivial. There was a queue to talk to Scotto. The "stigghiolaro" who wanted to set up the stall, the seller of contraband cigarettes, the "drink seller", the concrete supplier, the detergent shopkeeper: many turned to the boss for permission to start an illegal business or to intercede with someone else. And as he himself said to his girlfriend: "Everyone is happy because I'm right." It had also emerged that Scotto received citizenship income and also that, in order not to attract attention, he would have refused prestigious positions within Cosa Nostra: "They asked me to be the head of the mandamento - he said - but they are crazy! I have to thank God for coming out, there's no talking about it at all"

Mafia: 14 years and 4 months requested for Giovanni Luppino, Matteo Messina Denaro's driver
Luppino is responsible for mafia association and has been in prison since 16 January 2023, when he was arrested with Messina Denaro.
An agricultural entrepreneur from Campobello di Mazara (Trapani), the town where the mafia boss of Castelvetrano (Trapani) spent the last part of his thirty-year hiding, Luppino had told - in the immediate facts - a completely unlikely story, that of having accompanied Messina Denaro out of a spirit of humanity, after having learned, on the same morning as the arrest of the two, that he was a cancer patient who needed a ride to Palermo. The DDA accuses Luppino of fifty trips from Campobello to Palermo with Messina Denaro. And he accuses him of being part of the mafia organization also because he allegedly asked for protection money on behalf of the mafia clan led by the now deceased mafia boss.

Mafia, Ros operation against the Nebrodi clan: 37 precautionary measures

https://www.agenzianova.com/en/news...-nebrodi-clan-37-precautionary-measures/

Mafia: eleven sentences reduced or prescribed for Trapani clans

Among them Epifanio Agate , son of the deceased mafia boss Mariano. Agate received 3 years and 8 months, because he had already been acquitted of extortion in the first instance and convicted of the fictitious registration.

His father was one of the top bosses in Trapani and freemason, should be interesting what role Epifanio will have in the Trapanese cosa nostra, now he is free again.

Son-in-law of mafia boss Totò Riina arrested in Malta

https://timesofmalta.com/articles/v...strength-european-arrest-warrant.1082634

‘The self is suppressed’: psychologists explore the minds of the mafiosi
Italian researchers say that joining the mafia is like entering a cult in which members must leave behind their own identity

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...logists-explore-the-minds-of-the-mafiosa

Mafia: Messina Denaro's driver's sons arrested
Another blow to network that helped boss while he was on the run
ROME, 13 February 2024, 10:19

Carabinieri on Tuesday arrested two sons of Matteo Messina Denaro's driver as the authorities continue to target the network that helped the late Cosa Nostra boss during his 30 years as a fugitive to Italian justice.
The arrested men are Antonino Luppino and Vincenzo Luppino, the sons of Campobello di Mazara entrepreneur Giovanni Luppino, who also acted as the mafia boss's driver and ended up in handcuffs with him when he was arrested on January 16 last year.

Sebastiano Palermo, 38, with criminal records, was shot dead in front of his home in the town of Lentini (Siracusa) in a reputed mafia-style ambush

According to newspapers he was under special surveillance, how they managed to kill him if he was under surveillance?

he was not under surveillance h24, they chosen the right moment

The former 'Black Pimpernel' at the trial on the Bologna massacre: "I went to Sicily to save the judges on a specific mandate from the President of the Republic"
The former terrorist Paolo Bellini was sent to Sicily by the Quirinale to deal with Cosa Nostra during the years of the massacres. Bellini himself said it during the last hearing of the appeal trial on the Bologna massacre , for which the former black primrose of Avanguardia Nazionale was sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance.

https://www.antimafiaduemila.com/ho...fessione-in-aula-dell-ex-terrorista.html

Malta and the mob: how the Italian mafia came to view Malta as a second home
From drug trafficking to online gambling, Malta is proving fertile ground for the mafia

https://timesofmalta.com/article/malta-mob-italian-mafia-came-view-malta-second-home.1083090