When opposing Mafia police slammed the Sicilian mob on Tuesday, their main purpose was to prevent them from regrouping and creating a new governing body or Cupola.
But what they draw from their extensive investigation is an organized criminal organization that must adapt to modern reality and show nostalgia for past ambitions.
Giancarlo Romano told a colleague in a wiretap conversation before being shot a year ago that they would not have thugs as they did before.
Although the Sicily mafia’s crimes against past are obvious, they are still a force that cannot be ignored, he warned that anti-Mafia prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia: “Corsa No Cosa Nostra is still alive and now.”
Investigators revealed that a new generation of gang bosses have smuggled encrypted phones and thousands of short-lived micro SIM cards to prisons.
In this way, they try to avoid being eavesdropped because they focus their activities on drug crime, money laundering and online gambling.
Sicily’s Cosa Nostra has even begun working with other gangs, including the infamous and the larger Ndrangheta in mainland Italy.
Among the warrants suspected of Sicilian gangs in four areas of the capital Palermo, 33 convicted figures have been jailed.
Giovanni Melillo, the state anti-Mafaya prosecutor, said that despite all the repression, the high-security prison system is still at the mercy of the mob.
Investigations show that a gangster was able to watch a beating he ordered from prison in real time via video links.
The Mafia is very confident in the encrypted messaging platform it uses, which contains text slogans, voice notes and images.
But a year ago, a gangster’s home installed a bug that recorded him, and another man complained that the connection happened in an encrypted chat. When they tried to restore the link, several mafia characters were mentioned loudly.
The authorities in Sicily heard every word.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni praised the actions of the Italian military police officers, Carabinieri, and promised that the fight against the mafia “has not stopped, will not stop.”
Half of the arrested people were in their 20s and 30s.
Giancarlo Romano, considered a promising mafia figure in the Blancosio region in the center of Palermo, the capital of Sicily, recorded complaints about the decline of the mob and the recruits People with poor quality.
“The level is low, today they arrested someone and if he becomes a top they would arrest another… but pitifully low-level,” he said on his eavesdropping call.
He was eavesdropped on telling the aspiring mafia to go to school, know doctors and lawyers, and learn lessons by watching a film trilogy about the fictional Corleone Corleone Gangster family.
Today’s mafia is happy with the sale of marijuana in small bars, and others are moving in now, complaining: “Looking back, those unfortunately those who are unfortunate enough to go to prison for life… They did… because of the assumption There are a lot of hashings to arrive.”
Romano was killed and his colleague was injured in February 2024, which was clearly related to online gambling blackmail. That murder led to further arrests by authorities within the Romano Mafia branch.
Cosa Nostra is the shadow of the once-infamous organized crime mob, and over the past 30 years, a series of campaigns by the authorities have been reduced.
But despite the more modern mob dynamics, there are still many old practices and codes that still exist.
“Cosa Nostra is like marriage. You marry this wife and you’ve been with her all your life,” a mafia heard.
The obvious meaning is not leaving Cosa Nostra.
