Mafioso arrested
Italian police celebrate top Mafioso arrest
In a huge blow to the Mafia, police have arrested Salvatore Lo Piccolo, one of two Sicilian Mafia bosses regarded as the 'Godfathers' of Cosa Nostra.
Lo Piccolo's son, Sandro, was also captured in a raid on an apartment between Cinisi and Terrasini, near the coast outside Palermo. Salvatore Lo Piccolo, who had been on the run since 1983, was one of the two heirs of Bernardo Provenzano, the 'boss of bosses' who was arrested at a dilapidated farmhouse near Corleone last year.
The other heir to Provenzano, Matteo Messina Denaro, is still at large. He is believed to hold sway in Trapani, and is feared as a ruthless killer who enjoys a lavish lifestyle of fast cars,women and designer clothes.
Lo Piccolo by contrast is considered a more traditional Mafia boss, a product of the Palermo backstreets over which he and his clan ruled. Although he and Denaro had a clear geographical division, respecting each other's turf, they were rivals in other areas of Mafia crime such as drugs, infiltration of construction contracts, and protection rackets, as well as for the ultimate sole leadership of Cosa Nostra.
The operation to find Lo Piccolo was led by three investigating magistrates, Nico Gozzo, Gaetano Paci and Francesco Del Bene,and co-ordinated by Alfredo Morvillo, a Palermo anti-Mafia prosecutor.
Francesco Messineo, the chief prosecutor in Palermo, expressed his satisfaction. "With the arrest of these two we can proceed to dismantle the criminal apparatus in Palermo. They were the reference point for all economic activity by organised crime," he said.
The crackdown follows an increaisngly successful campaign by Sicilian businessmen against protection money, known as pizzo. Led by Confindustria, the Italian equivalent of the CBI, a growing number of businessmen have refused to pay up despite intimidation and threats to their lives. A number are under police guard because of their stand.
Lo Piccolo, born in 1942, has made a fortune in drug trafficking and public contracts, but is said to have begun his Mafia career with protection rackets in the low-income ZEN area of Palermo.
He escaped arrest in a crackdown on gangs under his control in 2005.
Lo Piccolo is believed to have had a serious rival in Palermo at one time in the form of Antonio Rotolo, who was mentioned in notes - 'pizzini' - found at Provenzano's hideaway as sharing power in Palermo with Lo Piccolo. Rotolo was arrested last year.
Investigators say one cause of friction between the two men was Lo Piccolo's willingness to consider the return to Palermo of the Inzerillo clan, whose members had escaped to the United States after losing out in inter-clan gangland warfare in the 1980s.
(Published by Times Online, November 5, 2007)
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