US, Italian cops in Mafia raids

2008-02-07 22:26

Rome - Authorities in Italy and New York arrested dozens of alleged members of key Italian and US Mafia clans who controlled drug trafficking between the two sides of the Atlantic, officials said.

Among the 29 people sought in Italy and the more than 60 being charged in New York were important members of clans linked to Salvatore Lo Piccolo, the Sicilian Mafia boss arrested in November, and the Gambino crime family of New York, the Interior Ministry said.

When Lo Piccolo was arrested, investigators warned that as part of his attempt to become Cosa Nostra's next "boss of bosses," he had been working to mend ties with US-Italian clans such as the Gambino and Inzerillo crime families.

Those relations had been wrecked during Sicily's internal Mafia war of the 1980s and the rise of the Corleonesi clan, which dominated Cosa Nostra until the arrests of boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina in 1993 and of his successor Bernardo Provenzano in 2006.

Investigators said bosses held meetings to pave the way for the return to Sicily of the Inzerillo crime family, which had fled the island during the Mafia wars, the ministry said. Lo Piccolo had favoured their return as way to renew ties and do business in the United States.

Named in arrest warrants issued by US authorities were key members of the Gambino family, including Domenico Cefalu and Frank Cali, described as the main contact between Cosa Nostra in Sicily and the US, authorities said.

In another success against organised crime in Italy on Thursday, police in Naples arrested one of Italy's 30 most-wanted fugitive mobsters, Vincenzo Licciardi, 42. Investigators described him as a top boss of the Camorra crime syndicate operating in that southern city.

- AP