Apr 21 2008
Mafia suspects arrested in Palermo
Palermo — Police on Monday arrested 20 suspected bodyguards accused of protecting the alleged Sicilian drug boss Angelo Galatolo from Italian security forces in the southern city of Palermo.
Arrest warrants have been issued in Palermo for a total 22 Mafia suspects in the police operation, called Freedom.
“The existence of a genuine criminal organisation can be inferred from several incidents which show its ability to evade security forces and thus continue its trafficking activities without impunity,” wrote Palermo public prosecutor, Fabio Licata, in the arrest warrant.
“Besides using mobile phones, the organisation took advantage of its grip on the area. This enabled it to move its trafficking activities from one neighbourhood to another whenever the security forces appeared to be closing in,” Licata said.
Licata said the Mafia clan also managed to identify individual policemen and soldiers monitoring the area and intimidated them to prevent probes and avoid prosecution.
Representative for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Italian senator Carlo Vizzini, described Monday’s Freedom operation as “a fatal blow to the Mafia cancer.”
He said the operation had struck at the Mafia’s control of the area and “its economic criminality, which launders profits from drug trafficking in the legal economy.”
Mafia suspects arrested in Palermo - 21 April - AKI - http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.2093582065
