ANCAPS Good News: Suspected mob boss kills himself in jail

ROME: The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo district hanged himself in jail hours after he was arrested in a blitz against the Cosa Nostra, Sicilian police said.

Authorities ordered the sweeping raids to prevent what they said were mob efforts to rebuild the Cosa Nostra. Some 90 suspects were arrested.

Paramilitary police said Gaetano Lo Presti's suicide in jail on Tuesday was under investigation. Lo Presti was detained because he allegedly headed a Mafia clan in the city's Porta Nuova district.

The capture of top fugitives has weakened the Cosa Nostra. Authorities said they had ordered Tuesday's raids to head off a bloody power struggle between rival mob bosses to rebuild the crime syndicate and reconstitute its top decision-making body - known as the cupola, or commission.

Among the charges levelled at the alleged mafiosi are extortion and arms and drug trafficking.

More than 1200 armed carabinieri took part in several hundred raids as part of Operation Perseus, named in an allusion to the hero of Greek mythology who decapitated the gorgon Medusa. Helicopter and dog-handling units were also sent in.

"While the 2006 operation [which led to 40 arrests] brought the Cosa Nostra to its knees, Perseus has prevented it from rearing its head again," the national anti-Mafia prosecutor, Pietro Grasso, said.

Residents in Palermo and nearby towns woke up to find themselves under virtual siege. One said the scenes recalled those of 20 years ago, when prosecutors ordered police into action on the basis of disclosures made by pentiti, the mafiosi who collaborate with police.

LNK

ANCAPS Good News: Suspected mob boss kills himself in jail

ANCAPS Good News: Suspected mob boss kills himself in jail

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