A raid and a secret tape exposed a Sicilian mafia that is shrunken, whiny and clinging on for survival | John Dickie

Not a single one of the 181 men and women targeted for arrest on 11 February managed to go on the lam before the crackdown.

Based on the numbers alone, this raid was the biggest anti-mafia operation since the 1980s .

Sicily was a very different place back then, and Cosa Nostra treated the Italian institutions with contempt, murdering any prosecutor, police officer or politician.

The prosecution argued that the murders of Falcone and Borsellino were part of an unspeakable pact that bound Cosa Nostra to politicians and deep-state actors.

In the end, so the prosecution claimed, the pact brought Silvio Berlusconi to power in 1994 , and left the mafia free to resume its ancient partnership with the powers that be.

But by then, beliefs were so entrenched that many are still convinced there was a cover-up.