Italian Police said they had arrested 25 Mafia suspects, including Maria Angela Di Trapani, a woman who had inherited the leadership of a Palermo crime family from her husband.
She is a murderer sentenced to life imprisonment.
Maria Angela Di Trapani was identified as having a leadership role in the Resuttana mandamento, one of eight Mafia districts in the Sicilian capital Palermo, the Carabinieri police force said, as quoted by the ANSA news agency and other media on Tuesday.
Di Trapani and the others were arrested on charges of Mafia membership, extortion, criminal damage, possession of stolen goods and aiding and abetting.
They had demanded protection money from local shopkeepers, ANSA said.
The woman has a previous conviction for Mafia crimes, as she was arrested in 2008 and remained in jail until 2015 for acting as a go-between between her husband Salvino Madonia and members of his Mafia family.
Female Mafia bosses are rare, but not unprecedented: Earlier this year, an appeals court sentenced Patrizia Messina Denaro, whose brother Matteo is the Sicilian Mafia’s top fugitive, to a 14-year-and-six-month jail term, considering her a top-level mobster.
