fugitive Italian Mafia leader, Salvatore Parisi, was arrested

fugitive Italian Mafia leader, Salvatore Parisi, was arrested on Friday by the Italian Carabinieri or paramilitary police on the outskirts of the Sicilian town of Monreale. Parisi, 54, has been accused by the anti-Mafia authorities in Catania of being part of a criminal organisation involved in drug trafficking. The authorities in the Sicilian capital Palermo also believe that he is a top member of the notorious Porta Nuova Sicilian Mafia family in Palermo. Reports say that the Mafia leader was hiding out in an apartment close to Monreale. When he saw the Carabinieri approach, he attempted to escape on a scooter but was arrested a few minutes later.
Parisi has already escaped arrest twice before, first in October 2007 in an operation carried out by the authorities in Syracuse in eastern Sicily and in February this year in a separate operation jointly conducted by the Italian police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Italy's four main criminal organisations are the Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra in Naples and the surrounding Campania region, the 'Ndrangheta in the southern region of Calabria, and the Sacra Corona Unita in the southern Puglia region.