Italy’s most wanted mafia boss arrested in San Pedro Alcantara

CIRO FIGARO, listed as one of Italy’s most wanted and dangerous men, was arrested last week in San Pedro Alcantara. He did not resist arrest, and at the same time, the son of another mafia boss who allegedly owed him money, Ciro Russo, who he was holding in San Pedro Alcantara against his will, was [...]

Mobster’s Sicily villa handed to the media

The keys of the Sicilian villa where the notorious Mafia godfather Toto “the Beast” Riina spent his final months as a fugitive have been handed over to the local branch of the Italian journalists’ guild, several of whose members died under his bloody rein.
The gift is the latest from the national agency that confiscates mob [...]

The Ten Commandments of the Sicilian Mafia

The Ten Commandments

of the

Sicilian Mafia:

A Tongue in Cheek Look at a Document

Recovered by Caribinari During the

Arrest of a Mafia Boss

In 2007, Salvatore Lo Piccolo and his son, Sandro, were captured by Sicilian police. The senior Lo Piccolo was the presumed replacement of Bernardo Provenzano as Mafia leader, since Provenzano had been captured after years [...]

Mafia investment ‘gave Silvio Berlusconi his big break’

The Mafia invested heavily in a 1970s housing project which gave Silvio Berlusconi his big break in business, an Italian court heard.
The allegation that Sicily’s Cosa Nostra helped finance the project was made in a Palermo court by Massimo Ciancimino, the son of a Mafia don who was close to the head of the Sicilian [...]

Witness links Berlusconi associate to top mobster

PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) – The key witness in a Mafia trial in Sicily told a court Tuesday that a close ally of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had direct links with the former “Boss of Bosses” of the Cosa Nostra.
Massimo Ciancimino, son of a convicted Mafia associate and former mayor of the Sicilian capital Palermo, told [...]

Battling an Image and Reality, Berlusconi Takes on the Mafia (Real and Fictional)

ROME — It seemed a spirited defense of his nation’s reputation: calling organized crime groups “a terrible pathology,” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday criticized movies and television shows that fictionalized the Mafia for giving Italy “a negative image abroad.”
Such shows, he said, were “an ugly trend” that he hoped would end soon.
Yet if anyone [...]

Italian Mob’s Profits Soar in Lousy Economy

Italy’s Mafia cleaned up to the tune of $109 billion in profits last year thanks to a well-honed knack for wringing money out of desperate people in a recession.
Italian crime syndicates raised profits by almost 8 percent in 2009 over the previous year by taking advantage of Italy’s distressed economy, according to a new report [...]

Berlusconi vows to beat Mafia pathology

Reggion Calabria, Italy – Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday announced a new drive to rid Italy of the “terrible pathology” of organised crime.
“The mafia – the ‘Ndrangheta and the other organisations, are a terrible pathology for our country,” Berlusconi said as he unveiled a 10-point campaign against organised crime.
He announced the plan after convening [...]

Italy’s African Heroes

Naples, Italy
By ROBERTO SAVIANO
WHEN I was a teenager here, kids used to shoot dogs in the head. It was a way of gaining confidence with a gun, of venting your rage on another living creature. Now it seems human beings are used for target practice.
This month, rioting by African immigrants broke out in Rosarno, in [...]

Mobsters ditch car near anti-mafia summit

Police in Italy say they have arrested a man linked to a car packed with explosives found near the site of an anti-mafia summit meeting.
The discovery of the vehicle near a Calabrian airport follows a bomb attack earlier this month on the town of Reggio Calabria’s main courthouse, Italy’s ANSA news agency reported Friday.
A [...]

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