PALERMO FAMILIES ARRESTED IN DRUG BUST

PALERMO FAMILIES ARRESTED IN DRUG BUST

(ANSA) - Palermo, November 16 - Sicilian police on Monday arrested 34 people in connection with a family-run drug ring moving cocaine, hashish and heroin on the streets of Palermo.

Police said the suspects ran the racket like a family owned business with women responsible for book keeping and inventory while the fathers and sons peddled drugs on the streets.

Over the course of the three-year operation, dubbed Family Market, dealers were seen pushing their wares in front of local grade schools while children looked on in the background.

Suspects are also said to have done business outside their homes, with drugs being lowered from their apartment windows in bread baskets.

Police say the ring turned over 30,000 euros per month, profits evidenced by the large amount of cash recovered during the operation which involved nearly 200 officers, five sniffer dogs and a police helicopter.

Arrests were also made in the western Sicilian towns of Marsala, Trapani and Erice where the families were reported to have extended their operations.

The operation came a day after the arrest of mafia superboss Domenico Raccuglia, wanted since 1996 and considered to be number two in Cosa Nostra's chain of command.

Known also as The Veterinarian, Raccuglia is facing three life sentences, one of them for killing the 14-year-old son of a mafia turncoat, whose body was then dissolved in acid to destroy the evidence.

Another life sentence came from the murder of a key witness in the 1994 assassination of anti-mafia crusader Giovanni Falcone.

Raccuglia was tipped as a possible successor to top mob boss Bernardo Provenzano after his arrest in 2006.

Hailing Raccuglia's arrest as "an extraordinary success," Justice Minster Angelino Alfano on Monday said he would be joining other mafia bosses in a high security prison with conditions reserved for the country's most dangerous mafiosi.