NAPLES, Italy, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- One of Italy's most-wanted organized crime bosses was arrested Thursday in what a government official said dealt the Mafia a "devastating blow."
Italy's anticrime chief Pietro Grasso told reporters in Naples that Vincenzo Licciardi, 42, was nabbed in a house in the village of Licola, on the coast north of the city after a lengthy investigation, the ANSA news agency reported.
Since 2004, Liciardi allegedly ran part of the Camorra syndicate, which is tied to drug trafficking and extortion in and around Naples, police said.
The secretary of Parliament's Anti-Mafia Commission, Tommaso Pellegrino, said the arrest had major significance.
''Licciardi's arrest is a devastating blow to the Camorra which has lost one of its most prominent and dangerous chiefs,'' he told ANSA. However, he said police had to ensure a turf war didn't result by underlings jockeying to replace Liciardi.
