Gambinos and the Sicilian connection

As dragnets go, the round-up of members of the Gambino clan and their suspected associates in New York and Palermo has been spectacular. The FBI and Italian anti-Mafia police claim to have pulled in well over 100 suspected Mafiosi, accused of drug trafficking, extortion, and aiding and abetting murder.

The Gambino clan, led until his death in 2002 by John Gotti, the Teflon Don, is one of the five core families of the New York Mafia. It was the Gambinos who organised the notorious summit in 1957 between the old clans of Palermo and New York in the Grand Hotel delle Palme, turning it into one of the tourist attractions of the Sicilian capital ever since.

The meeting was held to impose order on the widening international business of the

Cosa Nostra, primarily in drugs.

This week's dragnet shows the Gambinos and their squabbling peers in the Mob are still a force to be reckoned with. The breakthrough this time came with the arrest last November 5 of Salvatore Lo Piccolo (left) at a seaside resort in Sicily's gold coast, the Conca d'Oro. He was the boss of bosses, in charge of the 'Commission' of the major clans on the island, though he had many rivals, and one betrayed him.

His arrest has allowed Italy's anti-Mafia police and the FBI to start unpicking cocaine shipping networks, and break the regime of the pizzu - the name of the extortion fees paid by some 80 to 90 per cent of all businesses in Sicily.

Major corporations and the government have joined the fight with a determination not seen before. The giant cement company, Italcimento, based at Gela, has threatened to fire any managers paying off the Mob. The employers' association and the Italian government are now paying generous compensation for any damage caused by