Nov 8

　　Italians were given a salutary reminder on November 5th that not all crime in their country is committed by foreigners. At a house near Palermo, police seized Salvatore Lo Piccolo, the most senior Sicilian Mafia boss still at large. He had been on the run for 24 years. His son Alessandro and two other mobsters were arrested with him. All four men were on Italy's “30 most wanted” list.

　　It was the biggest victory in the fight against organised crime since April 2006 when Bernardo Provenzano, the Mafia's last capo di tutti i capi (“boss of all the bosses”), was found hiding in a semi-derelict farm building. Notes that he had written showed that he was running Cosa Nostra with the help of two other men. One was arrested two months later. The second was Mr Lo Piccolo.

　　Investigators said that, unlike Mr Provenzano, Mr Lo Piccolo's writ did not seem to run to the whole island. But the chief anti-Mafia prosecutor, Piero Grasso, still declared that the Mafia had been “decapitated”. That may not be undiluted good news. Any power vacuum in the organisation could lead to a ferocious fight that spreads a pall of terror over western Sicily. This time the situation may be aggravated by the return of several powerful Mafiosi who fled to America after most recent such war in the 1980s.