(ANSA) - Palermo, December 14 - The homes of around 30 people suspected of being supporters of fugitive Cosa Nostra No. 1 Matteo Messina Denaro were searched on Thursday in a huge police operation in the area of Castelvetrano, near the Sicilian city of Trapani, sources said.
Around 200 officers were involved in the operation. Messina Denaro, 55, has been on the run since 1993 and is on Europol's list of Europe's most wanted fugitives.
He has not been seen in public in over 20 years. An informant in 2014 helped authorities update their facial composite of the Mafia boss.
In March a trial began in Caltanissetta in which he is accused of being among those who ordered the 1992 bomb murders of anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
Falcone was assassinated by a huge bomb under the Palermo-Palermo airport highway at Capaci along with his wife Franvesca Morvillo and three police escorts on May 23, 1992.
Borsellino was killed by a massive car bomb on July 19, 1992, together with his five police escorts in via D'Amelio near his mother's home in Palermo.
Mafia: searches target Messina Denaro supporters
Around 200 officers employed in operation in Trapani area