Provenzano and Lo Piccolo property taken in 'huge blow' - Italian police on Thursday seized a slew of property into which Mafia bosses had been pouring dirty money.
Luxurious holiday homes on the chic north-west coast of Sicily were among assets worth a total of 150 mln euros that police traced to jailed Cosa Nostra chiefs Bernardo Provenzano and Salvatore Lo Piccolo.
''Confiscating property from Mafia bosses is the best way to strike at the heart of Cosa Nostra, which is why today's operation is extremely important,'' said anti-Mafia Commission Vicepresident Giuseppe Lumia.
''It represents a huge blow to the Mafia and to the grey zone that allows them to recycle illegally gained capital''.
Apartments and villas that formed a tourist complex in the seaside town of San Vito Lo Capo as well as 40 plots of land along the picturesque Sicilian coast were seized in the operation, codenamed Secret Business.
Police also confiscated a shopping mall, an industrial quarry and a series of current accounts worth 1.5 mln euros.
The assets were registered in the name of a known Mafia associate, Andrea Impastato, who Provenzano and Lo Piccolo used as a dummy to recycle their money.
The Cosa Nostra boss of bosses, 75-year-old Provenzano was arrested on a sheep farm near his hometown of Corleone in April 2006 after 42 years in hiding. A peasant who rose up the Mafia's ranks through his ability as a killer, he had been the undisputed Cosa Nostra kingpin since 1993, when police arrested Salvatore (Toto') Riina.
Provenzano's presumed heir, Lo Piccolo, 65, was nabbed last November in the countryside near Palermo after 24 years on the run.
