Cosa Nostra clan connected to New York mafia dismantled by Italian police
Italian police have dismantled a Cosa Nostra clan linked to the New York mafia. On July 14th, Italian officials hit the Torretta clan with the arrest of eleven alleged members accused of infiltrating the Sicilian political and economic system in addition to their involvement in New York organized crime. The clan is considered an “historic” one in Italy.
The detained, all men, are accused of belonging to a crime association, drug trafficking and extortion aggravated by classic gangster violence. Nine ended up in jail, one under house arrest and another unable to leave his city, as reported by Andalucia Informacion.
“The investigation demonstrated the relationship between the gangsters of Italy and the United States, the oppressive penetration into the economic fabric of the community and the contamination of local institutions,… We try to liberate and give dignity to a community that on too many occasions and for too long was under the unbearable weight of the mafia,” said Carabineros General Arturo Guarino
The operation, called “Crystal Tower”, consisted of a new “vitality” of this family on the periphery of Palermo and a new rise among the clans that are part of the cusp of Cosa Nostra, using its link with New York. Not surprisingly, the Torrettas, with their stronghold in the Palermo municipality of Passo di Rigano, watched over the return to Sicily from the USA of the “scappati” escapees, those defeated by the Corleone clan in the second mafia war between 1981 and 1984.
