A Cosa Nostra boss arrested on Tuesday says the Sicilian Mafia has a written statute.
The Sicilian Mafia has a statute written by its ‘founding fathers’, a Cosa Nostra boss arrested in a Palermo sweep says on a police wiretap, judicial sources said.
Magistrates said the wiretap confirmed long-held judicial views the criminal organisation had iron-clad rules based on its own special ‘Constitution’. Bosses continue to respect age-old norms handed down over the generations and impose them on new members, the sources said. The Cosa Nostra is therefore based on its own warped principles, the judicial sources said.
A preliminary investigations judge described the wiretap as “extremely rare” proof of the existence of a written Mafia code. This code has been jealously guarded for decades and still governs the lives of Cosa Nostra in Palermo.
On Tuesday, police arrested seven bosses and affiliates in Palermo.
One of the bosses was also caught on an intercept criticising the former all-out assault on the State by the late Totò ‘the Beast’ Riina. That included the 1992 assassinations of magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, which sparked an unprecedented crackdown by authorities. As a result, the Sicilian Mafia was severly weakened.
However, the mafia’s enduring strength has been confirmed by the web of allies and supporters which helped boss Matteo Messina Denaro evade capture for 30 years. He was captured last Monday in a Palermo cancer clinic.
This Tuesday’s police operation netted long-time bosses and newer ‘men of honour’ who were described as “reserved”.
