On 11 February 2025, Italian police carried out a major operation in Palermo, Sicily, targeting key mafia districts. With 1 200 officers deployed in the city and surrounding areas, and aerial surveillance to support the raids, law enforcement officers arrested over 180 people from the notorious clans that have ruled the Sicilian mafia, the Cosa Nostra, for the past two decades.

The crackdown was the culmination of an investigation that began in 2023, which revealed that Cosa Nostra was restructuring in a bid to regain the international influence it had held until the first decade of the 2000s. Intercepted phone conversations suggest that veteran mobsters lamented the decline in the quality of recruits and were attempting to return the organization to its former glory. Despite years of law enforcement pressure that had greatly depleted their strength, Cosa Nostra had held on by blending traditional criminal structures with the approach and style of younger generations. The details of the investigation provide glimpses into some of the changes the Sicilian mafia has undergone.

Young guns

Contrary to the perception that Cosa Nostra is dominated by ageing bosses clinging to power, a demographic analysis of those arrested in the raids paints a different picture. Judging by the arrests, Cosa Nostra is a surprisingly young organization: 118 of the 181 arrested were under 50. Of these, 40 are under 35 and 10 under 25.

Moreover, all the young people arrested were locals born and raised in Palermo. This indicates that, despite years of law enforcement focus on dismantling Cosa Nostra, which had forced bosses to subcontract illicit activities to foot soldiers from foreign criminal networks, particularly Nigerian groups, Palermo’s criminal milieu still hold sway. Recruitment of local fresh blood to reinvigorate the criminal group appears to have been successful and a new generation of locals is actively involved in mafia operations, introducing the use of encrypted-communication tools such as Number 1BC – a platform that has become popular among criminals after Europol’s takedown of messaging app SkyECC.

The use of new encrypted platforms by Cosa Nostra is particularly noteworthy. While other Italian mafias, such as the Camorra and ‘Ndrangheta, have been undergoing a digital revolution, Cosa Nostra had always relied on an analogue approach, communicating messages by paper (known as pizzini).

Profits, partnerships and power

The investigation also uncovered evidence of Cosa Nostra’s financial resurgence. Once thought to be financially weakened, the mafia group appears to have regained some economic stability, allowing it to support imprisoned members and their families – a key strategy to maintain loyalty and prevent incarcerated members from becoming informants.

Like mafias the world over, extortion continues to be an essential tool by which the group enforces territorial control. However, the investigation suggests that coercion methods have changed. The extent of extortion in targeted neighbourhoods and business sectors (namely the hospitality and fishing industries) has decreased. And as highlighted by anti-mafia organization AddioPizzo, the main motivation for making extortion payments is no longer fear, but rather complicity.

This investigation confirms findings from court cases that have exposed connections between individuals who readily pay extortion money and Cosa Nostra – suggesting not a victim–extortionist relationship but a partnership, where these payers willingly participate in the mafia ecosystem. Since 2023, the authorities have been able to track 50 cases of extortion, but only a handful had been reported by the alleged victims, indicating high degrees of complicity in certain areas of Palermo. Declining profits from extortion are likely to explain why Cosa Nostra has diversified into online gambling, using technology to increase profits and launder illicit funds.

In addition to extortion and gambling activities, the investigation found that trafficking of drugs, particularly cocaine and crack, is the organization’s main source of income. Cosa Nostra has strengthened its links with the ‘Ndrangheta, whose international connections have made it dominant in the global drug trade and the main supplier of cocaine to the Sicilian market. Figures such as Emanuele Cosentino, a prominent member of an ‘Ndrangheta clan from Calabria, have played a crucial role in strengthening these links through a steady supply of cocaine to Sicily.

According to investigators, after his release from prison in October 2023, Cosentino re-established contact with Cosa Nostra leaders in Palermo, particularly the Serio family from the mandamento (mafia district) of San Lorenzo. The collaboration led to the establishment of standardized cocaine prices for different Cosa Nostra clans to avoid internal conflict, allowing both mafia organizations to maximize profits.

Intercepted conversations on encrypted messaging platforms suggest that Cosentino acted as a broker for cocaine trafficking between his international connections and Cosa Nostra, particularly through Gioia Tauro, a port in Calabria and one of the hubs for cocaine shipments into Europe.

The institutional response and its challenges

Two years in the making, the February operation resulted in charges of attempted murder, trafficking in illegal substances and mafia association. But despite the immediate success of this and previous operations, the battle against organized crime in Sicily is far from over.

The operation revealed Cosa Nostra’s ability to recruit new local members and foot soldiers, and to harness modern technology and reach global markets. These will present new challenges for law enforcement in the longer term. The use of encrypted communications, including from prison, not only allows mafia members to coordinate operations with relative ease, but also exposes structural weaknesses in the prison system.

In an interview, Giovanni Melillo, Italy’s chief anti-mafia prosecutor, warned of the growing sophistication of organized crime. He noted that Cosa Nostra clans who had fled Sicily after losing turf wars and believed to be powerless are regaining strength due to collaborations with Calabrian and Neapolitan mafias in Italy, the United States and elsewhere. This shift challenges traditional models of mafia control based on territorial divisions and requires law enforcement agencies to rethink their investigative techniques.

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, praised the operation and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to combating organized crime. The operation was ‘a very hard blow to Cosa Nostra,’ she posted. ‘The state is here and won’t back down.’ Meloni stressed the need for vigilance, technological advances in law enforcement and international cooperation to dismantle mafia networks.

However, despite the firm institutional stance against organized crime, more efforts must be directed at dismantling the recruitment pipeline in Palermo by targeting younger members who are revitalizing Cosa Nostra’s ranks. The authorities must also tighten prison controls to prevent communication between mafia members and their bosses. Many experts have argued that Cosa Nostra’s heyday is over. Judging by information from the recent arrests, however, the Sicilian mafia appears to be more resilient than ever and may well be set to flourish.