The code name for last week’s anti-Mafia raid, at least among the more than 1,200 Italian police officers who carried out the nearly 100 Mafiosi arrests in Palermo and Tuscany, was “Perseus.” The name refers to the Greek mythological hero who killed Medusa by cutting off her head—and it’s meant to embody the renewed Italian commitment to “decapitate” the Mafia elite. For Peter Schneider, a retired sociology professor who studied organized crime in Italy for decades, the reference is not entirely apt. He describes Italian crime rings as “hydra-like”: “You cut off one head, and three or four others sprout immediately.”
Either way, it’s clear that heads are rolling. In just the last few months, police have nabbed 17 of the country’s 30 most-wanted fugitives. The blitz, dubbed “historic” by anti-Mafia forces, has targeted all major crime syndicates: the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the Naples-based Camorra, and Calabria’s ’Ndrangheta. A critical win was the arrest of Gianni Nicchi, said to be the Cosa Nostra’s No. 2, early this month. Another was the Dec. 1 sweep of southern Italy—the grand finale of operation “Domino,” which decimated the Parisi clan and allowed officials to confiscate assets totalling nearly $374 million.
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