The father of two former assistants of celebrity chef Nigella Lawson has been arrested for conspiring to sell cocaine and hash as a member of the Calabrian mafia, investigators said yesterday.

Over the past few weeks, Italy has been back at the heart of events.

A fugitive Mafia boss wanted by the Italian authorities told officers who arrested him in the UK “I’m not going back, they will kill me”, a court heard.

A bomb exploded outside a high school in southern Italy named after a slain anti-Mafia prosecutor as students arrived for class today, killing a teenage girl and wounding several other classmates, officials said.

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ORGANISED crime has tightened its grip on the Italian economy during the economic crisis, making the Mafia the country’s biggest “bank” and squeezing the life out of thousands of small firms, according to a report.

CELEBRITIES fear a backlash from the British tabloid press if they speak out at an inquiry into media standards, comedian and actor Steve Coogan said, adding that newspapers were like the Mafia in the way they operated.

A convicted Mafia hit man today claimed Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi made a deal with the mob in the 1990s in exchange for political support.

Police captured one of Sicily’s top Mafia fugitives yesterday, dealing a blow to the island’s Cosa Nostra crime syndicate.

Italian authorities took into custody a top boss from the Gambino Mafia clan today who was deported from the United States after spending more than two decades in jail for drug trafficking.

A hitman wanted for killing six people in a bloody feud between Mafia clans was arrested today near Amsterdam.

A huge police operation wrecked plans by the Sicilian Mafia to reform its once all-powerful leadership today.

ITALIAN cheese makers are trying to assure customers their prized mozzarella is safe to eat after high levels of dioxin were found in some samples of the buffalo milk used to make it.

The governor of Sicily resigned today after coming under growing pressure following his conviction and five-year prison sentence for providing information that helped a Mafia boss.

One of Italy's most wanted mafia leaders was shot dead today trying to escape from police.

SALVATORE Lo Piccolo, who magistrates believe is the Sicilian Mafia’s new “boss of bosses”, was arrested yesterday after nearly a quarter of a century on the run, police said.

Revenue from organised crime in Italy adds up to €85bn or about 7% of the country's gross domestic product, a small business lobby said.

Gardaí laid siege to a Donegal nightclub in the late 1990s, harassing and intimidating staff and customers in a manner worse than the Mafia, the Morris Tribunal heard today.

EVER since Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather hit the New York bestseller list in 1969, the small town of Corleone in the heart of Sicily has been in the limelight because of its Mafia associations.

Italian police today said they have arrested 13 people, including a judge accused of ties with the Mafia, as part of a crackdown on organised crime in southern Italy.

The reputed boss of the Italian Mafia Bernardo Provenzano maintained his prison silence today as forensic experts searched his hideout and police arrested three men accused of aiding Italy’s No.1 fugitive.

Police today arrested three people accused of aiding Italy’s No.1 fugitive and reputed Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, who was captured after four decades on the run.

ITALY’S reputed No 1 Mafia boss was arrested yesterday at a farmhouse in Sicily after evading capture for more than 40 years.

ITALY’S most wanted man, the Mafia’s “boss of bosses” Bernardo Provenzano, has been arrested in Sicily after 43 years on the run.

Top jockey Kieren Fallon today accepted undisclosed libel damages over a claim that he made an unprovoked attack on a fellow rider.

Defence lawyers cited forensic reports today to argue that suicide, not murder, was the real cause of the 1982 death of the Italian financier known as “God’s banker” because of his close ties to the Vatican.

JOSEPH MASSINO, who went from the New York Mafia’s last old-school don to its highest-ranking turncoat in a betrayal that rocked organised crime, was sentenced to life yesterday after admitting his involvement in eight mob murders.

FOUR people were indicted yesterday on murder charges in connection with the death of Italian financier Roberto Calvi, the man known as ‘God’s Banker’ because of his close ties to the Vatican, whose body was found hanging in London in 1982, reports said.

Four people were indicted today for the murder of Italian financier Roberto Calvi, a banker with close ties to the Vatican whose body was found hanging under a London bridge in 1982, reports said.

Italy was commemorating the victims of mob-related violence today, remembering hundreds of policemen, magistrates and citizens killed by the Mafia.

DJ supremo Fatboy Slim was robbed at gunpoint by a vicious Mafia gangster during a gig in Naples, Italy.

Italy’s highest court was expected to rule today on whether former Premier Giulio Andreotti’s record should be fully cleared of lingering accusations that he aided the Mafia while in power decades ago.

Rail travel between northern and southern Italy was blocked for a third day as demonstrators near Naples occupied train tracks to protest against a local rubbish dump.

Italy’s anti-Mafia unit is investigating the theft of files from the British coroner re-examining the death of “God’s Banker” Roberto Calvi, it emerged today.

FORMER Taoiseach John Bruton last night joined the pre-election attacks on Sinn Féin by claiming its alleged military wing was responsible for more deaths than the Mafia.

Former Italian premier Giulio Andreotti was formally acquitted of charges that he ordered the Mafia killing of a journalist in 1979, with the country’s highest court wiping out a previous conviction of the veteran politician.

Murder charges are expected to be brought against a group suspected of the Mafia killing of “God’s banker” Roberto Calvi, a lawyer said today .

A shootout involving wives and other female relatives of feuding Mafia bosses has left three women dead and five people wounded in a tiny village near Naples.