The “unprecedented” crackdown on the group based in Calabria, southern Italy, came just a day after Italian police arrested the new boss of the separate Sicilian mafia. Photo: Alessandro Fucarini/AFP

The Sicilian Mafia had managed to rebuild the Cupola after it had not met for years, Italian media reported – which was taken as a sign that the Sicilian clans had chosen to return to the structure of the past. "Forty-six arrests and one in particular, that of Settimo Mineo, represents one of the toughest blows inflicted by the State on the Mafia," said deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio. Jeweller Mineo, 80, was detained with at least 45 others just before he was due to be appointed official heir to notorious mafia boss Toto Riina, who died in prison last year. "There is no more room for this type of scum in Italy," Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio wrote on Instagram.
The alleged boss of the Cosa Nostra mafia clan is arrested along with 45 suspected accomplices in the province of Palermo, Italy. They are accused of aggravated extortion.