Italian arrests 'decapitate' Sicilian Mafia, police say

By Alessio Vinci
CNN
ROME, Italy (CNN) - Italian paramilitary police carried out massive
arrests Tuesday against the Sicilian Mafia in Palermo, "decapitating" the
organization's leadership structure, the head of the city's Carabinieri said.

More than 1,200 Italian Carabinieri, backed by helicopters, took part in
the operation and arrested more than 90 suspects, the head of the Carabinieri
in the regional capital of Palermo said.

The operation began at 3:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m. ET Monday) and was still
going on at midmorning. Palermo officials said charges would include
association with the Mafia, extortion, and arms and drug trafficking.

"Their aim was to reconstitute the Sicilian Mafia's decision-making body,
known as the 'Commissione,' which was disbanded in the early 1990s following
the arrest of the top boss Toto Riina," Colonel Teo Luzzi said.

The Commissione was the executive body of the Mafia, uniting the most
powerful bosses of the Mafia clans operating in Sicily. It was the Commissione
that decided to carry out the killings of Italy's top anti-Mafia magistrates in
May and July 1992.

The high-profile killings prompted the Italian government to deploy the
army in Sicily to fight the Mafia, and Toto Riina was arrested in January 2003.

"Since then the Mafia didn't really have a decision making body," Luzzi
said, "and with these arrests we decapitated the top brass of the Palermo
Mafia."

Luzzi also said that Sicily's most wanted Mafioso, Matteo Messina Denaro
– who has been on the run for more than a decade and leads a clan in nearby
Trapani in eastern Sicily - is not among those arrested.

"But those whom we did apprehend were associated with him and were trying
to create a new decision-making body at his request," Luzzi said.
Arrest warrants were also issued against several suspects in Tuscany,
Luzzi said.