The Sicilian Mafia is not
beaten, former national anti-mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso said
Wednesday.
Grasso, now leader of the leftwing Free and Equal (LeU)
party, said "the mafia is not only history.
"The mass-killing mafia of (the late Bernardo) Provenzano and
(the late Totò) Riina may have been defeated thanks to police
and prosecutors but Riina's recent death must constitute a
reason for particular attention on the possibility of Cosa
Nostra's strategic and decision-making central command structure
being rebuilt".
He said "criminal organisations of a Mafia type still today
make their presence felt".
Grasso was speaking at the presentation of the final report
of the parliamentary anti-mafia commission.
In the report, commission chair Rosy Bindi said Riina's death
had strengthened the mafia, which was actively reorganising and
seeking a new boss of bosses.
She also said no part of northern Italy was "immune" from
mafia penetration, and that the mafia played a big role in
managing migrant arrivals.
Bindi said Italy had become a destination for "all foreign
mafias, whether they came in on the tailcoats of migratory flows
or not.
She cited groups of Nigerians, Albanians, Maghreb nationals,
Serbs, Kosovars, Montenegrins, Bulgarians, Romanians, Chinese,
Russians and Georgians, plus Latin American gangs.
They had all, she said, "inserted themselves increasingly in
the criminal ganglions of Italian society".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA