Italian Police Arrest Alleged Mafia Mobsters Who Held Secret Meetings Inside A Giant Fridge

Nick Squires at the British newspaper the Telegraph offers a piece on Cosa Nostra members who were arrested after holding meetings in a large fridge.

It was intended as a cunning ruse to evade surveillance by anti-mafia police.

When a bunch of alleged mobsters held their meetings inside a giant fridge in a town in Sicily, they were convinced that the thick insulating walls would protect them being eavesdropped on by police.

But detectives had got wind of the secret summits that were regularly held in the fruit and veg lock-up and had planted recording devices inside, in an operation they code-named “Freezer”.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/21/italian-police-arrest-alleged-mafia-mobsters-held-secret-meetings/ 

Note: If you would like to learn more about the Cosa Nostra in Sicily, you should read John Dickie's Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia.

Italian Police Decipher 'Mafia Code' In Initiation Script

Nick Squires at the British newspaper the Telegraph offers a piece on the discovery of a code used by organized crime in Italy.

Italian police have cracked an encrypted mafia initiation rite written in a code resembling ancient Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The secret document was found by detectives in Rome during an investigation into the murder of a member of the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, which is based in the southern region of Calabria, the toe of the Italian boot.
 

It refers to a pledge of “blood and honour” that is required of those wanting to become part of the ‘Ndrangheta, which has grown rich and powerful from cocaine trafficking, extortion and other criminal activities.
 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10562132/Italian-police-decipher-Mafia-code-in-initiation-script.html 

Ex-Cosa Nostra Boss Threatens To Slaughter Prosecutors 'Like Tuna'

Nick Squires at the British newspaper the Telegraph offers a piece on Toto Riina, the former boss of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.

A mafia godfather nicknamed The Beast has threatened to slaughter Italian prosecutors "like tuna".

Toto Riina, the former "boss of bosses" of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, delivered the threats from behind bars – he has been in prison for murder and other crimes since 1993.
 

He yelled the threats from his prison cell as he watched video footage of a trial, held in Palermo, which is investigating an alleged pact drawn up 20 years ago between the mafia and Italian politicians.
 

Riina said he would arrange for a prosecutor, Nino Di Matteo, to be killed like a tuna – an allusion to the "mattanza", the traditional tuna hunt off Sicily in which the fish are driven into big nets and then slaughtered with sharpened knives and spikes amid a sea of blood.
 

"He'll meet the same end as a tuna," Riina said, according to the accounts of prison guards.  

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10451214/Ex-Cosa-Nostra-boss-threatens-to-slaughter-prosecutors-like-tuna.html