Mobster Domenico Raccuglia, 'The Veterinarian,' Is Arrested In Italy

ROME — Police captured one of Sicily's top Mafia fugitives on Sunday, dealing a stiff blow to the island's Cosa Nostra crime syndicate, Italian officials said.

Convicted mobster Domenico Raccuglia, who has been on the run for 15 years, now faces several life sentences for crimes including the murder of a rival's 9-year-old son, whose body was then thrown into a vat of acid.

"Mimmo" Raccuglia was nicknamed "the veterinarian" for his love of animals, according to The Australian.

Raccuglia was arrested in an apartment in a tiny town near Trapani, where he is believed to have had his power base, police said.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni described Raccuglia as Cosa Nostra's No. 2, and hailed his arrest as delivering "one of the hardest blows" to the Sicilian Mafia in the last few years.

Palermo Prosecutor Antonio Ingroia described Raccuglia as a rising star in the syndicate. He was listed as one of Italy's 30 most dangerous fugitives.

"We have captured one of the absolute heads of Cosa Nostra still in circulation in a moment of (his) ascent in the Mafia hierarchy," ANSA quoted Ingroia as saying.

The No. 1 Cosa Nostra fugitive on the island is considered to be Matteo Messina Denaro, who investigators believe also has his power base in western Sicily.

Comments

[Bitsko]

But I had an appointment with him on Monday about my cat.

[Goliadkin]

Sorry, there are no appointments available until 2059.

[pup sydney]

when you see how lobbyists and weak polticians destroy the USA you may understand that organized crime may provide the dispossessed with a way to assert the wrong power but power nonetheless. mafia loves it here too.