3 held in Italy for helping late Mafia boss

Italian authorities arrested three people on Wednesday in a major anti-mafia operation aimed at dismantling the network of collaborators of late mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, reported Xinhua.

All three suspects were professionals without showing previous links to the Sicilian mob or any other organized crime groups.

The arrested people include a doctor and a radiology technologist in the Sicily region, and an architect originally from Sicily and now residing in the Lombardy region, according to Italy's Carabinieri military police force.

Prosecutors with the Anti-mafia District Directorate in Sicily's regional capital Palermo, who coordinated the operation, have charged them with either membership or external association with the Sicilian mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra.

The operation has been conducted by Italian judiciary authorities and police since the arrest of notorious Matteo Messina Denaro in Sicily in January 2023 after evading capture for 30 years.

The mafia boss died in hospital later last year at the age of 61. Since then, authorities have conducted several raids against professionals, entrepreneurs, and other citizens considered "above suspicion," who allegedly aided the boss at large for so long.

So far, 14 people have been arrested and charged with aiding and abetting Messina Denaro, with four of them already convicted and serving jail sentences.

Messina Denaro was considered the top leader of Cosa Nostra, one of Italy's three most powerful mafia groups.