Sicilian Mafia

Two gunmen shot and killed a prominent member of a branch of the Sicilian Mafia operating in Turin today in what police said was a Mafia vendetta. Police identified the victim as Santo Miano, 37, one of three brothers on trial in Turin for crimes committed by a transplanted Sicilian Mafia gang known as the Catania clan. Both of Miano's brothers turned state's evidence after their arrest and police said this apparently was the reason for Miano's killing.

Police in Italy swooped upon the powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia Tuesday, arresting more than 300 people — including the group's suspected top boss — and seizing millions of dollars in assets, in one of the biggest operations against organized crime in the country's history. About 3,000 police officers fanned out across the nation in the early morning sweep, which caught some suspects still in bed. Although the 'Ndrangheta is based in the Calabria region in the south, many of the arrests took place in the north, around Milan, where the group has increasingly shifted its operations.

The Sicilian Mafia, far from beaten by mass arrests, is diversifying its drug operations and reverting to lucrative extortion and kidnaping, Italian officials say. Pressure on the Mafia has cut its share of the American heroin market from one-third down to barely 10%, U.S. officials say, but sales have been channeled instead to Western Europe. Mafia wholesalers are pushing cocaine into new European markets.

Here are some tips gathered from my trip last fall to western Sicily: Pack cottons and sunglasses. Summer lasts six months a year and is hot and uncomfortable. Expect almost everything to be closed from 1 to 5 p.m., when Sicilians take cover from the furnace outside by clamping their windows shut and pulling down the shades. Read "The Leopard," Giuseppe di Lampedusa's elegy to the waning 19th century in Sicily; "The House by the Medlar Tree: I Malavoglia," a gaunt little classic by Giovanni Verga about the island's hopeless poor; "Fire Under the Ashes," James McNeish's 1965 biography of Danilo Dolci, the Gandhi of Sicily; "Last Godfathers," an all-too-vivid history of the Sicilian Mafia, by John Follain; "On Persephone's Island," Mary Taylor Simeti's ode to the natural rhythms of the island; and every mystery novel by Andrea Camilleri, featuring the Sicilian gourmand and gumshoe Salvo Montalbano, that you can get your hands on. Be mindful of the stories they tell, but don't be paralyzed about what people say about the dangers and hardships of traveling here.

Gaetano Badalamenti, 80, once described by federal authorities as the "boss of all bosses" of the Sicilian Mafia, has died, a Justice Department spokesman said Friday. No date, place or cause of death was given, but Badalamenti had been housed at the Federal Medical Center in Ayer, Mass., which treats inmates with serious illnesses. Badalamenti was a ringleader in a $1.65-billion heroin and cocaine smuggling operation that used pizzerias as fronts to distribute the drugs from 1975 to 1984.

Police in Italy swooped upon the powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia Tuesday, arresting more than 300 people — including the group's suspected top boss — and seizing millions of dollars in assets, in one of the biggest operations against organized crime in the country's history. About 3,000 police officers fanned out across the nation in the early morning sweep, which caught some suspects still in bed. Although the 'Ndrangheta is based in the Calabria region in the south, many of the arrests took place in the north, around Milan, where the group has increasingly shifted its operations.

Leoluca Orlando, noted for his denunciations of the Sicilian Mafia, has been reelected mayor of Palermo, officials announced Tuesday night.

Police said they have broken up a drug-trafficking ring investigators called Rome's largest "supermarket of heroin." The operation supplied cocaine to the Sicilian Mafia in exchange for heroin that was sold in Rome and exported to Canada.

Italian police said they have arrested 13 people suspected of helping a top Mafia fugitive hide, communicate with other mobsters and conduct his business. Investigators said that with the arrests they are closing in on Matteo Messina Denaro, a fugitive who is among a handful of mobsters vying to take over the Sicilian Mafia. Most of the arrests were carried out in Trapani, a city in western Sicily that is the power base of Messina Denaro. "He's the last of the great fugitives," said Giuseppe Linares, the top police official in Trapani.

Four men shot to death two brothers with ties to the Camorra, the Neapolitan version of the Sicilian Mafia, police said Sunday. Francesco Giugliano, 28, and his brother Umberto, 23, died shortly after the ambush outside their home near Naples. Investigators said they believe the shootings were part of an organized crime vendetta and that Francesco was the intended victim.

Police have captured one of Sicily's top Mafia fugitives, dealing a stiff blow to the island's Cosa Nostra crime syndicate, Italian officials said. Convicted mobster Domenico Raccuglia has been on the run for 15 years. He was arrested in an apartment in a tiny town near Trapani, where he is believed to have had his power base, police said. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni described Raccuglia as Cosa Nostra's No. 2, and hailed his arrest as delivering "one of the hardest blows" to the Sicilian Mafia in the last few years.

Italian police said they have arrested 13 people suspected of helping a top Mafia fugitive hide, communicate with other mobsters and conduct his business. Investigators said that with the arrests they are closing in on Matteo Messina Denaro, a fugitive who is among a handful of mobsters vying to take over the Sicilian Mafia. Most of the arrests were carried out in Trapani, a city in western Sicily that is the power base of Messina Denaro. "He's the last of the great fugitives," said Giuseppe Linares, the top police official in Trapani.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Wednesday gave a temporary reprieve to Rosario Gambino, a convicted heroin trafficker with alleged ties to the Gambino crime family who had been ordered deported to Italy. A Los Angeles immigration attorney filed a petition with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after Immigration and Customs Enforcement tried to deport Gambino on Tuesday night. Gambino was returned to a detention facility in New Jersey because of health concerns, his attorney said.

Gaetano Badalamenti, 80, once described by federal authorities as the "boss of all bosses" of the Sicilian Mafia, has died, a Justice Department spokesman said Friday. No date, place or cause of death was given, but Badalamenti had been housed at the Federal Medical Center in Ayer, Mass., which treats inmates with serious illnesses. Badalamenti was a ringleader in a $1.65-billion heroin and cocaine smuggling operation that used pizzerias as fronts to distribute the drugs from 1975 to 1984.

A court in Sicily found former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti innocent Saturday of consorting with the Mafia, ending a sensational four-year trial that put Italy's Cold War political order on the dock along with that era's dominant figure.

Police said they have broken up a drug-trafficking ring investigators called Rome's largest "supermarket of heroin." The operation supplied cocaine to the Sicilian Mafia in exchange for heroin that was sold in Rome and exported to Canada.

Police have captured one of Sicily's top Mafia fugitives, dealing a stiff blow to the island's Cosa Nostra crime syndicate, Italian officials said. Convicted mobster Domenico Raccuglia has been on the run for 15 years. He was arrested in an apartment in a tiny town near Trapani, where he is believed to have had his power base, police said. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni described Raccuglia as Cosa Nostra's No. 2, and hailed his arrest as delivering "one of the hardest blows" to the Sicilian Mafia in the last few years.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Wednesday gave a temporary reprieve to Rosario Gambino, a convicted heroin trafficker with alleged ties to the Gambino crime family who had been ordered deported to Italy. A Los Angeles immigration attorney filed a petition with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after Immigration and Customs Enforcement tried to deport Gambino on Tuesday night. Gambino was returned to a detention facility in New Jersey because of health concerns, his attorney said.

The Sicilian Mafia, far from beaten by mass arrests, is diversifying its drug operations and reverting to lucrative extortion and kidnaping, Italian officials say. Pressure on the Mafia has cut its share of the American heroin market from one-third down to barely 10%, U.S. officials say, but sales have been channeled instead to Western Europe. Mafia wholesalers are pushing cocaine into new European markets.

Gunfire punctuates changing times in Sicily today as a historically immovable object, the Mafia, meets an increasingly irresistible force, the Italian state. For the first time, the world's most infamous criminal family is being seriously combatted by Sicilians on its own turf. The Mafia is not dead--far from it. But it is bleeding. Gritty Sicilian reformers challenging death and tradition say they have at last cracked the Mafia's mantle of impregnability.