A reputed Mafia boss on Italy's list of the 10 most wanted fugitives was arrested yesterday in the Naples region, in a crackdown that also nabbed two of his brothers, police said.
Pasquale Russo, 62, was "the big boss of the (mafia) clan and has been on the most-wanted list for 16 years", a spokesman for Italy's paramilitary Carabinieri police in the southern city said.
Mr Russo, on the run since 1993, has been convicted several times for murder and for association with the Mafia.
Police said the investigations "proved unequivocally his relations with the heads of the Cosa Nostra (Sicilian mafia)".
Police made the surprise arrest early Sunday, arriving at a cottage in Sperone, about 30 kilometres east of Naples, where Mr Russo was holed up with his brother, Carmine, 47, also a fugitive from the law since 2007. During the operation a 53-year-old baker, unknown to police but who was housing the two Russo brothers, was also arrested.
A Beretta pistol, two munitions cartridges, a night vision goggles and a microphone detector were found in his home.
On Saturday another brother, Salvatore Russo, 51, was arrested at a farm on the outskirts of Naples.
According to investigators, the arrest Saturday spread panic in the clan, which allowed police to gather facts from phone tapping and to launch a lightning raid at 2 a.m. (0100 GMT) making any escape impossible.
The Russo clan controlled "all the illicit activities in a vast area" comprising some 40 towns in the Naples region, police said on Saturday.
The Russo brothers had reorganised the structure of Naples' Camorra mafia in the early 1990s after the boss of the region, Carmine Alfieri, turned and cooperated with the authorities, and the Russos "exercised absolute control over their territory", police said.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni on Saturday saluted the "efficiency" of the action, while Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa paid homage to the Carabinieri police for this "hard blow" to the criminal gang.
The Naples prosecutor Giovandomenico Lepore said the fight against the Camorra required significant resources.
With their detectors and their scanners, they "use our (technological) methods but they have far superior economic resources," he said. The Naples Camorra, comprising several dozen families affiliated to often feuding clans, is believed to be 5,000-strong.