Two months after the arrest of Italy’s most-wanted mob boss shone a spotlight on the mafia, more than 50,000 people marched on Tuesday in Milan to remember their victims. “It will be 28 years at the end of this month, and we are still searching for the truth,” said Paolo Marcone, 50, whose father was killed in 1995 by the mafia in Foggia, in Italy’s southeastern region of Puglia. READ ALSO: ‘Very violent’: How Italy’s youngest mafia is terrorising the Puglia region Francesco Marcone, a local official, had just returned home from work when he was shot in the back. Banner ad “Dad died on t ..read more

It took a loaded pistol pointed at Lazzaro D’Auria’s head for the Italian landowner to finally say yes to the demands of the country’s newest and most violent mafia. The Puglia farmer had resisted their extortion attempts in the past; threats, fires, and damage to his crops and property. But an early morning visit from a dozen men, including a boss with a gun, forced him to agree to their demand for 150,000 euros a year. Banner ad Instead of paying up the next day, D’Auria went to the police, making him one of the few people to ever denounce Foggia’s little-known and long-ignored mafia k ..read more

Edgardo Greco, 63, is suspected of belonging to the notorious ‘Ndrangheta, a powerful mafia organisation in Calabria, southern Italy. He is wanted in Italy to serve a life sentence for the murders of Stefano and Giuseppe Bartolomeo, and accused of the attempted murder of Emiliano Mosciaro “as part of a mafia war between the Pino Sena and Perna Pranno gangs that marked the early 1990s”, Interpol said. The Bartolomeo brothers were beaten to death with iron bars in a fish warehouse, Italian police said. Banner ad Greco’s arrest in central France came with help for Italy and France from the ..read more

Around 730 people in Italy are subject to the country’s highly restrictive detention regime known as ‘41-bis’, which means near-total isolation and severe restrictions on family visits. This treatment is reserved for mafia bosses and other offenders deemed highly dangerous, and there’s little appetite in the country to soften it. READ ALSO: Italian police seize €250 million and arrest 56 in latest mafia blitz But a 100-day hunger strike by one prisoner under this regime, anarchist Alfredo Cospito, has renewed debate over the use of 41-bis and forced the Italian government to defend it. Bann ..read more

The early-morning blitz by over 300 police focused on areas of Calabria – Italy’s poorest region – under the control of the Mancuso clan, a powerful branch of the infamous ‘Ndrangheta, many of whose top operatives are among hundreds of defendants in an ongoing ‘maxi-trial’. Fifty-six people, many already in prison, were put under criminal investigation for a series of crimes including mafia-related conspiracy, extortion, kidnapping, bribery and possession of weapons, police and prosecutors said. READ ALSO: ‘Ndrangheta: It’s time to bust some myths about the Calabrian mafia Besides alleged ..read more

As the son of a mafioso turned state witness and a cousin of captured Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro, Giuseppe Cimarosa has seen the Sicilian Mafia and its intimidation tactics up close. But, while many in Messina Denaro’s hometown of Castelvetrano stayed silent following his arrest last week after 30 years on the run, Cimarosa organised a demonstration against the mafia in front of the mobster’s family home. “Now the real battle is cultural. Now you have to change people’s mentality,” the 40-year-old riding instructor told AFP at his stables in Castelvetrano, the town in western Sicil ..read more

While some in Castelvetrano are relieved the barbarous 60-year-old is finally behind bars, many in the Cosa Nostra heartland where he grew up refuse to speak about him. Since the arrest of Messina Denaro on Monday, passers-by in the town of nearly 30,000 people in Sicily’s southwest have hidden under umbrellas or walked faster to avoid the swarms of journalists from Italy and beyond. READ ALSO: Messina Denaro: How Italy caught ‘most wanted’ mafia boss after 30 years “We don’t like to talk much in this town,” muttered one old man, before he slipped away. Banner ad Messina Denaro, who was ..read more

Messina Denaro, 60, a convicted killer known for a long series of brutal crimes, was caught during a visit to the clinic on Monday after 30 years on the run, after being forced to seek treatment for cancer. “He is seriously ill. The disease has accelerated in recent months,” Vittorio Gebbia, head of the oncology department at the Maddalena clinic in Palermo, told newspaper La Repubblica. READ ALSO: How Italy caught ‘most wanted’ mafia boss after 30 years He underwent surgery for colon cancer in 2020 and 2022 under a false name, according to leaked medical records published in Italian media ..read more

On Monday, police caught Italy’s most wanted fugitive, Sicilian mobster Matteo Messina Denaro, after 30 years on the run. Investigators have in the past claimed Messina Denaro was based in Sicily but travelled widely, to mainland Italy and overseas. But the 60-year-old mafia boss, known for particularly brutal crimes, was found to be living in a modest apartment just a few kilometres from his small Sicilian home town – and was nabbed as he sought treatment for cancer at a Palermo clinic. Banner ad Experts said he needed to stay close to home to maintain his power and protection, like for ..read more

Police officers were seen guarding the road leading to the unremarkable yellow-painted building in Campobello di Mazara, just up the road from Messina Denaro’s hometown of Castelvetrano in western Sicily. Searches found no weapons but perfumes and luxury clothing, according to media reports. Police declined to comment to AFP. Messina Denaro, 60, was arrested on Monday at the private La Maddalena health clinic in Palermo, where he had an appointment for treatment for colon cancer, under a false name. Banner ad A powerful boss of the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia that inspired the hit “G ..read more