Italian police are cracking down on La Cosa Nostra

Tony Soprano has been fielding panicked calls from overseas relatives all week, after Italian authorities in Palermo on Tuesday executed a large-scale sting against the Sicilian Mafia. ~150 suspects were arrested in the series of raids, marking the biggest such crackdown on the organized crime group since 1984.

• The suspects are part of “Cosa Nostra,” the Mafia syndicate based in and around Palermo that controlled organized crime across Europe during the 1980s and ‘90s.
• They were charged Tuesday with various crimes, including drug trafficking, attempted murder, extortion, illegal online gambling, and illegal firearms possession.

How Cosa Nostra operates: Investigations revealed the Mafia families coordinate their illicit activities across Palermo, including drug trafficking, collecting “pizzo” (or protection money) from businesses, and forcing traders to use Mafia-sourced products at inflated prices.

• Officials also found a wide network of informants – including a clerk in the Palermo prosecutors office – and discovered how encrypted mobile phones are smuggled into prisons to allow jailed Cosa Nostra bosses to continue exercising their command.

🌍 Big picture: Cosa Nostra has decreased in power due to Italian authorities' efforts in recent decades, ceding its place as Europe’s most powerful mob to the ‘Ndrangheta (from Italy’s southern Calabria region).

‘Ndrangheta controlled 80+% of Europe’s cocaine trade and earned ~$55 billion/year as of 2023, making it one of the world’s richest and most powerful organized crime groups.