Police cracks down on 'Catania Mafia clan'

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 2 - Over 100 Carabinieri police officers on Friday carried out a sweeping operation to arrest 13 people suspected of Mafia association and drug trafficking.
    The operation called 'Leonidi bis' and coordinated by Catania anti-mafia investigators DDA followed an 18-month-long investigation and cracked down on the local 'Santapaola Ercolano' clan, investigative sources said. Investigators believe a generational conflict was pitting the clan's younger members against seasoned bosses.
    Many of the established bosses have been detained for years in prisons across Italy but were nevertheless giving orders over the phone to manage the clan's businesses, investigative sources said.
    They thus continued to impart directions on how to manage proceeds of illegal activities, among other things, by communicating with "free members through phones they had illicitly obtained and were able to keep in prison", something which "would prove the absolute accessibility of penitentiary institutions", the sources stressed.
    Bosses involved in the investigation include Salvatore Battaglia, the historic leader of the group based in the Villaggio Sant'Agata district of Catania, together with his brother Santo, and the protagonist of a bloody season in the 1990s.
    He has already been convicted on charges of Mafia association and murder.
    Police seized several weapons, munitions, one kilo of cocaine and six of hashish during the operation, the sources said.
    (ANSA).