Police in Sicily on Tuesday arrested 11 people allegedly close to late Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro in relation to a probe into money laundering. The suspects allegedly laundered huge amounts of money for Palermo's mafia clans with the help of compliant entrepreneurs and financial experts.
Six of the suspects were taken to jail, with the others being put under house arrest. MessinaDenaro had been convicted for his involvement in dozens of murders, including the 1992 Cosa Nostra bombings that killed anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. He was caught in mid-January last year after 30years on the run while leaving a clinic where he was being treated for cancer inPalermo. He died in a hospital in L'Aquila on September 25 aged 62. The investigation was conducted by the Palersmo DDA anti-mafiadepartment and Carabinieri police in the province of Trapani. The suspect are also thought to have formed a clans of Calabria's 'Ndrangheta mafia.