Italian police arrest 181 in bid to stop Mafia rebuilding in Sicily

Italy's military police launched the operation in the early hours of Tuesday

Italian police have launched a series of raids targeting Mafia clans operating in and around the Sicilian capital Palermo.

More than 1,200 officers were involved in the operation, which the military Carabinieri force said was aimed at "dismantling" the area's Mafia.

The raids, the biggest for several years, were seen as a bid by Italian authorities to stop the Mafia rebuilding its governing body known as a Cupola.

A number of Mafia bosses have been released from jail in recent months on appeal. But investigators say those still behind bars have used encrypted mobile phones to continue their activities.

They also found that Sicily's Cosa Nostra mafia have updated the practices of their "founding fathers" and no longer need to meet in person.

One local leader had managed to stay in hiding and still hold sway over organised crime in his local district, police explained.

For more than 100 years Sicily's notorious Mafia held a grip on local towns and cities, extorting businesses through protection money and making big profits from drug trafficking.

In the early 1990s crusading anti-mafia prosecutors were murdered as they tried to hit back.

Then in 1993 the so-called boss of bosses, Salvatore "Toto" Riina, was arrested in Palermo, and in 2023 notorious mobster Matteo Messina Denaro was detained as he visited a local clinic.

Although many mobsters are in jail, the Carabinieri said they had succeeded in smuggling tiny mobile phones into their cells in an attempt to continue their criminal activities.

Police said they had found out about the mob's encrypted chats by installing listening devices in suspects' homes and cars. However, they are not yet thought to have cracked the encryption so their ability to eavesdrop has been limited.

According to La Repubblica, police are still trying to hunt down members of the chat who go by nicknames such as Robert de Niro and Spider Man.

Tuesday's raids began before dawn, targeting clans across Palermo, from Tommaso Natale in the north of the city to Porta Nuova in the centre.

Police said their investigation covered a range of suspected offences, from mafia association and drug trafficking to attempted murder and armed crime.

Several bosses who had already been freed from jail after serving sentences are among those arrested.

Among them was reportedly Tommaso Lo Presti, who had spent 12 years in jail before his release in 2023.

There was an outcry last year when it emerged Lo Presti had celebrated his silver wedding anniversary in a Palermo church where anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone was buried.