Gabriel Bouys /AFP/File
Italian police say the 'Cosa Nostra' communicated using sheep-based phrases written on tiny bits of paper that were hidden under rocks
(AFP Photo/Gabriel Bouys)
[From article]
Italian police on Monday arrested 11 suspects linked to the fugitive head of the Sicilian Mafia, including a former boss who ran a secret message system for the mobster using a sheep-based code.
Matteo Messina Denaro, 53, who has been on the run since 1993, used a farm in Mazara del Vallo to communicate with his henchmen via the aged-old method of "pizzini", bits of paper containing messages often written in cipher, police said.
Among those arrested was former boss Vito Gondola, 77, whose job it was to call the clan members to alert them to each new message, which was placed under a rock in a field at the farm and often destroyed on the spot after reading.
[. . .]
Three of those arrested were over 70 years old.
The only known photos of Denaro date back to the early 1990s. He is believed to be the successor of the godfathers Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, who are both serving life sentences, but less is known about him.
At the height of his power he had a reputation as a flashy, ruthless womaniser who ruled over at least 900 men with an iron fist.
[. . .]
The Sicilian Mafia, known as "Cosa Nostra" or "Our Thing", was the country's most powerful organised crime syndicate in the 1980s and 1990s, but has seen its power diminish following years of investigations and mass arrests.
It also faces fierce underworld competition from the increasingly powerful Naples-based Camorra and Calabria's 'Ndrangheta.
Italy cracks Mafia sheep code to arrest Godfather's henchmen
By Ella Ide
August 3, 2015
